Chinese authorities still looking for black boxes after 30 hours

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The Chinese authorities are yet to find any survivors from the crashed China Eastern flight MU5735 30 hours after the accident took place, while still not knowing the cause of the crash, Chinese officials said Tuesday. 

The aircraft had sustained severe damage from the impact, increasing the difficulty of searching for the black boxes and survivors, and with investigations still being preliminary, it is impossible to pinpoint what it is exactly that caused the accident, according to Zhu Tao, an official from the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC).

The aircraft had 132 on board at the time of the crash, 123 of which were passengers and the others were crew members.

Chinese Vice Premier Liu He and State Councilor Wang Yong led a team to the plane crash site late Monday to guide the search operation the investigation into what could have caused the devastating accident.

The search is still underway, with more than 2,000 rescuers and firefighters on the case trying to find anything of use to the probe.

The aircraft had two black boxes, the search for which is pivotal for the course of the investigation, but due to the crash site being a forested mountainous area, searchers are relying on drones and manpower, which complicates the matter.

DJI Technology is helping with the search, dispatching an advanced emergency drone team equipped with night vision and infrared to the site, bringing to the table a huge advantage for the search.

Airliner comforts victim's families

An official from China Eastern Airlines said the firm had made contact with the families of all the passengers and crew within 24 hours of the accident, dispatching more than 160 experts to offer help to the families.

Yishang Hotel in Tengxian, Guangxi, vacated all of its 109 rooms to receive family members and psychologists from all over the country, closing its doors to other customers. Several other hotels followed suit, as they were requisitioned as designated hotels for the families of the victims.

Chinese authorities have reported, on Monday, that a Chinese plane carrying 132 people crashes in Guangxi Province and started a fire on the mountainside.

Near the city of Wuzhou in the Guangxi region, the Boeing 737-800 crashed while flying from Kunming in the southwestern province Yunnan to the industrial center of Guangzhou along the east coast. It ignited a fire big enough to be seen on NASA satellite images. 

China Eastern, one of the four major carriers in China, is state-owned like Air China, China Southern Airlines, and HNA Group. The airline is headquartered at Shanghai's Pudong International Airport, and its fleet of 749 aircraft includes 291 from the Boeing 737 series, according to its mid-2021 interim report.