Rescue Team Continues Search For Victims Of China Eastern Airline, Cause Of Accident Unclear

Search for victims of China Eastern Airlines Boeing 737-800 plane crash. (Source: CHINA DAILY)

JAKARTA - The rescue team continues the search for victims of the crash of the China Eastern Airlines Boeing 737-800 carrying 132 crew and passengers, while the authorities say determining the cause of the crash will not be easy, given the condition of the plane that was in pieces.

Flight MU5735 was on Monday bound for the port city of Guangzhou from Kunming, capital of the southwestern province of Yunnan, when it fell from cruising altitude into the Guangxi Mountains less than an hour before landing time.

A jet can be seen dipping to the ground at an angle of about 35 degrees from the vertical in video images from the vehicle's dashboard camera, according to Chinese media. Reuters could not immediately verify the footage.

No survivors were found, Zhu Tao, director of aviation safety at the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC), told reporters.

"The jet was badly damaged during the crash, and the investigation will face a very high degree of difficulty," Zhu said at the first government briefing on the disaster.

"Given the information currently available, we still do not have a clear assessment of the cause of the crash," he continued, adding the aircraft did not respond to repeated calls from air controllers during the drastic altitude drop.

On Tuesday, rescue teams combed the slopes of a densely forested mountain in southern China, using shovels and torches to search for victims and the plane's black box. About 600 soldiers, firefighters and police marched to the crash site, a patch of about 1 square kilometer (0.4 square mile) in the area surrounded by mountains on three sides, after excavators cleared the road, state television said.

It added that the search for the Boeing 737-800 MU5735 black box would be conducted on a grid-by-grid basis, possibly throughout the night.

State television showed images of the plane's wreckage strewn among the scorched trees. The remains of burnt identification cards and wallets were also seen.

Rain is expected in the region this week. The police set up a checkpoint in Lu village, as they approached the site, and barred reporters from entering. Several people gathered for a small Buddhist ceremony nearby to pray for the victims.

Highlighting top-level concerns, Deputy Premier Liu He traveled to Guangxi on Monday evening to oversee search and rescue operations. An official of the same rank was also sent to the site of the 2010 crash in northeastern China.

"The B737-800 jet meets airworthiness standards before takeoff and is in stable technical condition," Sun Shiying, a China Eastern official, told the briefing.

"The crew members are in good health, and their flying experience complies with regulatory requirements."

Prior to the crash of the China Eastern Airline fleet, the last commercial jet to crash in China was in 2010, when an Embraer E-190 regional jet flown by Henan Airlines crashed, killing 44 of the 96 passengers.