China Plane Crash Update: Black Box Sent for Analysis

A black box from the crashed China Eastern airliner was recovered on Wednesday as investigators try to piece together what made a jet carrying 132 passengers nosedive into a mountainside in southern China.

A flight recorder “from China Eastern MU5735 was found,” on Wednesday Liu Lusong, a spokesman for China’s aviation authority, told reporters, although state media later said it was badly damaged.

The Boeing 737-800 is equipped with two flight recorders: one in the rear passenger cabin tracking flight data, and the other a cockpit voice recorder.

“At present, it is unclear whether it is a data recorder or a cockpit voice recorder,” that has been found, Mao Yanfeng, an official at the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC), said according to state media.

The Boeing 737-800 plane went down near Wuzhou in southern China on Monday afternoon after losing contact with air traffic control.

The cause of the crash has yet to be determined. Most of the jet appears to have disintegrated upon impact, although some debris and human remains have been found.