TENG COUNTY, GUANGXI - China officials on Friday (March 25) said some debris from a crashed China Eastern Airlines plane was buried as deep as 20m in the ground while a 1.3m long fragment was found nearly 10km away, an indication of the massive impact when the jet hit the ground.
They are also expanding a search zone in hopes of finding the second black box - the flight data recorder - which eluded the search team for a fourth day.
Investigators have found human remains and items of clothing among the aircraft debris, and have taken DNA samples from family members to aid with identifying victims.
“(We) have not found any survivors but we will not give up on it,” said Mr Zhu Tao, Director of Safety at the Civil Aviation Administration of China, at a press briefing.
Search teams will continue scouring the 30m-wide core area in a grid-like manner for the remaining black box, and have also brought in other search equipment including thermal imaging devices and metal detectors.
More than 2,000 local residents have also joined in the search, said head of the area’s Public Security Bureau Lao Gaojin.
He added that police investigators have helped with collecting DNA samples from the scene and have retrieved personal belongings.
“We have found remains and taken 18 fingerprint samples and retrieved 101 items of clothing,” he said.
So far, 375 family members of those on board the plane have visited the site.
They have been spread out across 12 hotels in Teng County and Wuzhou city, Mr Zhu said.
An airline representative reiterated that the company is doing everything it can to facilitate visits by family members to the site, and is looking at compensation for “living expenses”.
This comes after chairman of the carrier’s Yunnan subsidiary Sun Shiying on Tuesday told distraught family members not to go to Guangxi because of the current Covid-19 outbreak across the country.
On Friday when The Straits Times tried to enter Lv Village, a main entry leading to the crash site, police and soldiers from the local military branch said only those accompanied by officials were allowed in.
Teary family members carrying what appeared to be prayer paraphernalia and clothing were ushered past check points.
On Friday morning, CAAC News, a media outlet under the civil aviation authority, reported that a second black box had been found.
But this was later refuted by the official Xinhua news agency. The stories were quickly scrubbed from CAAC News’ website and social media pages.
The cockpit voice recorder found on Wednesday has suffered heavy damage, including possibly to its hard disk, and is undergoing repair at a lab in Beijing, said head of the CAAC’s accident investigation centre Mao Yanfeng.
“Currently, we cannot determine the exact time needed for the data downloading and analysis of the black box already recovered,” he said.
He also confirmed that in line with international practice, investigators will proffer a preliminary report to relevant stakeholders at the 30-day mark.
The accident on Monday is China’s most serious aviation disaster in over a decade, with all 132 on board feared dead.
Flight MU5735 was on a regular service from Kunming to Guangzhou when it suddenly nosedived close to the border between Guangxi and Guangdong.
The Boeing 737-800 plunged into a heavily forested area deep in the mountains with challenging terrain.
Officials said that a special road had to be opened off the side of a highway to allow vehicles to more easily access the crash site - before that, cars entering would have to make an 11-km detour.
A continuous downpour across sub-tropical Southern China has also severely hindered efforts, with search teams having to deal with sludgy ground, flooding and minor landslides.
