Report on China Eastern flight crash finished in 30 days after tragedy: authorities
Rescuers carry the debris of the crashed aircraft from the main accident site.
The initial investigation report on ill-fated China Eastern flight MU5735 that crashed in south China on March 21 will be completed within a month after the accident and fully publicized, an official said on Thursday.
With the recovery and searching nearly finished, the accident has entered the technical analysis, evidence investigation and collection stage, said Zhu Tao, director of Civil Aviation Administration of China's flying safety office.
The preliminary investigation report will be completed within 30 days of the accident and publicized after the end of the investigation, according to international convention and China's civil aviation law, Zhu told the 10th press briefing on the accident.
"No suspicious point will be missed to find out the cause of the accident and prevent such a catastrophe from happening again," Zhu said.
According to the Chicago Convention on International Civil Aviation, investigators will submit a preliminary investigation report to the International Civil Aviation Organization, in both Chinese and English, within 30 days.
Investigators are taking photos of the environment of the crash site, the distribution of aircraft debris and impact marks to evaluate the movement and impact force of the Boeing 737-800 plane, Zhu said.
The discovery and recovery work involved at the site of the crashed China Eastern aircraft is nearly completed.
The automatic radar data of the air traffic controller is also under analysis to restore the flight's progress before the accident. Investigators are also checking materials related to the passengers, luggage, cargo and mail.
The plane's two black boxes, the cockpit voice and flight data recorders, have been subjected to decoding, Zhu added.
The search for aircraft debris has been nearly completed. Apart from the recorders, rescuers have found the remains of engines, horizontal stabilizer, winglet of the right wing and other key parts of the aircraft.
A total of 49,117 pieces of aircraft debris have been found. These are being disinfected, cleaned, identified, categorized and coded. Most of the items have been transported to a storage warehouse for further cleaning and arrangement.
The flight was en route from Kunming in southwest China's Yunnan Province to Guangzhou in southern Guangdong Province when it crashed in Tengxian County of Wuzhou City in Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region on March 21.
Flight MU5735 had 123 passengers onboard along with nine crew – three pilots, five flight attendants and a security guard. All 132 people on board are dead.
Rescuers found the two black box recorders within a week after the accident and identified the DNA of all victims within eight days.
Zhang Zhiwen, a senior official with the Guangxi government, said some 34,000 rescuers were deployed. They searched across the core area covering 400,000 square meters and dug out some 22,700 cubic meters of earth.
Also, some 216 fire trucks, 16 drones, 30 pieces of construction machinery, hundreds of geographic detectors and thousands of protective gear items such as hazmat suits were used.
