China confirms all 132 on board China Eastern plane died in crash: State media
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Rescue workers at the site of the plane crash on March 24, 2022.
PHOTO: AFP
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BEIJING (BLOOMBERG, REUTERS, AFP) - All 132 passengers and crew on a China Eastern plane that crashed this week died, Mr Hu Zhenjiang, deputy director of the Civil Aviation Administration of China told a press conference on Saturday (March 26) night.
Dozens of victims’ relatives have been waiting for days as rescue teams combed heavily forested slopes for plane debris and signs of survivors from Monday’s crash in Teng County, in the city of Wuzhou, in Guangxi province.
“It is with great sadness that we announce that the 123 passengers and nine crew members on board China Eastern Airlines Flight MU5735 on March 21 have all died,” Mr Hu said. “The identity of 120 victims has been determined by DNA identification.”
Earlier, officials also said it has not found any evidence of explosive materials in the wreckage.
“Lab tests taken of 66 samples, 41 of which have been completed, showed no major common inorganic explosive or common organic explosive substances have been found,” fire official Zheng Xi said at a briefing in Wuzhou city on Saturday.
Mr Zhu Tao, an official with the Civil Aviation Administration of China, added that investigators found a transmitter installed close to a missing black box, but have not found the flight data recorder itself.
The team is also seeking the data module from the flight data recorder itself.
The other black box, the cockpit voice recorder, was found on Wednesday and has been sent to Beijing for examination by experts.
Some 24,000 pieces of wreckage have been retrieved, officials said, and remains of 120 people have been identified.
The search is focused on an area with a radius of 300 meters (330 yards) from the main crash site, though part of a wingtip was found 12km away.
Rescue officials at the press briefing described a difficult search of the crash site, and showed pictures of investigators slogging through mud.
Flight MU5735 was travelling from the south-western city of Kunming to the southern city of Guangzhou on Monday when the Boeing 737-800 plummeted from cruising altitude to crash in the heavily forested area of Guangxi region.
The plane plummeted from its cruise altitude of 29,000 feet, leveled off once and then appeared to fall straight down.
Chinese state media have said the plane crash left a crater 20m deep.
A China Eastern Airlines spokesman attended the briefing on Saturday, saying that it’s been difficult to meet all the needs of relatives of the passengers on the flight.
Many of the relatives are staying at a hotel near the crash site, officials have said.
