China Eastern crash: cockpit recorder sent for analysis as first human remains are found at mountain site

More than 300 rescue workers were still combing a remote mountainside in Teng County, near Wuzhou in Guangxi province, on Wednesday evening when officials announced that the first human remains had been found. Work at the site had been briefly suspended earlier that day because of poor weather. The recovery follows the crash of a China Eastern Airlines Boeing 737 on Monday afternoon, which killed all 132 people on board.

The aircraft went down after plunging from more than 6,000 metres (20,000ft). The cause is not known, and investigators have said that establishing it may prove difficult. The plane struck the mountain with such force that much of it disintegrated on impact.

One of the two black boxes, the cockpit voice recorder, has been recovered. It is badly damaged, but Zhu Tao, an official at the Civil Aviation Administration of China, said its storage units are damaged yet "relatively complete". They have been sent to an institute in Beijing to be decoded. The second black box, which records flight data, has not yet been found, and the search for it continues. Investigators hope the two recorders can explain why a plane that had passed safety checks before departure came down during the cruising phase of its flight.

According to flight data trackers, the aircraft was a six-year-old Boeing 737-89P. The 737-800 family is among the most common passenger jets in the world, and is distinct from the 737 Max, which was grounded worldwide after fatal crashes in 2018 and 2019.

Chinese state media have begun to publish details about those on board. In China Youth Daily, a man using the pseudonym Wang Baiyang said his 26-year-old sister, Gu Hanyu, her husband Guo Zengqiang and their 18-month-old daughter were among the passengers. It was the first flight of their lives. They were travelling to Guangzhou so the child could receive medical treatment, and had originally been booked on an earlier flight that was cancelled. Gu, who was born deaf, met Guo on a blind date, and the couple married in February 2020 at a simple ceremony. Before boarding, she sent the family a video of her daughter jumping around the lounge, playing with her mask and giggling.

"For the past two days, I felt like I had a dream," Wang said, adding that he kept thinking his sister would call the next morning. His grandfather had died just before the news of the crash arrived. "Life-saving flights become fatal flights," he said. "It was their first and last flight."

A retiree surnamed Zhang, from Shenzhen, visited the site and told Reuters that his nephew had been on board. With tears in his eyes, he said he hoped the country would investigate thoroughly and determine whether the cause was the manufacturer's fault or a maintenance problem.

Amid speculation that the pilots might have been responsible, Sun Shiying, chairman of the airline's Yunnan branch, told reporters on Wednesday that the three pilots on board were in good health, "had good performance" and had maintained harmonious relationships with their families.

This is the worst air disaster in China in more than a decade. The inquiry is led by Chinese authorities, but because the aircraft was built in the United States, investigators from the US National Transportation Safety Board have been invited to take part. Whether they can travel is unsettled, held up by visa and quarantine requirements. The NTSB said it is working with the State Department to resolve those issues with the Chinese government before any travel is decided. What the Beijing analysis of the cockpit recorder yields, and whether the flight data recorder is found, will shape what investigators can say next.