All 132 people on board the China Eastern Airlines Boeing 737 aircraft have been confirmed dead, state media reported on Saturday evening.
For the unversed, the China Eastern Airlines Boeing 737 aircraft, which departed from Kunming and was bound for Guangzhou, crashed into a mountainous area near Molang village in Tengxian County in the city of Wuzhou at 2:38 pm on Monday, causing a mountain fire, according to the regional emergency management department. The plane was carrying 123 passengers and nine crew members.
Meanwhile, the second black box, believed to be the flight data recorder of the crashed plane was found by the search team, official media reported on Friday.
The first black box stated to be the cockpit voice recorder, (CVR) which was recovered earlier is being decoded at a laboratory in Beijing and the data downloading and analysis work is underway, officials said.
China Eastern Airlines, which owned crashed airline and its subsidiaries temporarily grounded 223 Boeing 737-800 aircraft and the airline has launched a sweeping safety overhaul, Liu Xiaodong, head of the airline's publicity department, told a press briefing.
All grounded aircraft are undergoing checks and maintenance according to the highest safety standards to ensure that they meet the airworthiness requirements, Liu said.
Liu added that 305 family members of 56 passengers on board the crashed plane arrived at Wuzhou by Thursday morning, with over 200 family members visiting the crash site.
On Thursday, pieces of engine wreckage from the crashed passenger plane were found.
The main impact point of the plane crash has been basically determined, Zhu said, adding that most of the plane wreckage was scattered within a radius of about 30 metres of the main impact point and the depth from the surface extends to about 20 metres underground.
WHAT CAUSED THE CRASH?
The cause is unknown. Flight 5735 was at 29,000 feet (8,800 meters) on Monday afternoon when it went into a dive about an hour into its flight, according to flight-tracking website FlightRadar24.com.
The plane plunged to 7,400 feet (2,200 meters) before regaining about 1,200 feet (360 meters), then dived again. The plane stopped transmitting data 96 seconds after it started to fall.
