Rescuers found one of the flight recorders of the Boeing 737 plane that crashed in southern China with more than 130 people on board, officials said Wednesday, as regulators and the airline faced growing pressure to release more information about the disaster. Search efforts have been underway since the plane plummeted into a rural mountainside on Monday. The device recovered from the China Eastern plane was believed to be the cockpit voice recorder, officials said during a brief news conference on Wednesday. More fragments of the aircraft and body parts were also recovered, they added. No survivors have been found, and it is increasingly unlikely that anyone on board made it out alive. The Chinese government, faced with its worst air plane disaster in more than a decade, has moved quickly to control the flow of information, using a playbook it has honed over recent years that deploys propaganda and censorship. Its first official announcement on Monday, a two-line report from state television, came out nearly two hours after the crash, and provided only the basic details. Official media have since said little about what could have led to such a disaster, like if there were problems with the plane, the crew or the weather. Instead, state media has been dominated by scenes of emergency crews rushing to the scene and orders from China’s leader, Xi Jinping, to officials to do their utmost to find survivors. Government and airline officials did emerge to give a news conference a day after the crash, but they could not answer basic questions about the doomed plane, a six-year-old Boeing 737-800, or its pilots, drawing online criticism that officials were issuing “rainbow farts” — a common idiom to describe excessive praise. Censors deleted articles and social media posts that raised more detailed questions about the disaster. <br/>
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The Chinese aviation regulator has launched a sector-wide inspection for potential safety lapses as authorities race to search for victims and the black boxes of a commercial jet that crashed in the mountains of southern China. The cause of the crash of the China Eastern Airlines jet in Guangxi region on Monday is yet to be determined, with Chinese aviation authorities warning that their investigation would be very difficult because of the severe damage to the aircraft. The two-week inspection of the sector will involve checks at all regional air traffic control bureaus, airline companies and flight training institutes to ensure the "absolute" safety of aviation operations and people's lives, the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) said late on Tuesday. Since the crash, China Eastern and two subsidiaries have grounded their fleet of more than 200 Boeing 737-800 jets.<br/>
As recovery teams searched mountainous terrain for victims of Monday's plane crash in southern China, a man surnamed Zhang whose nephew was among the 132 people aboard the Boeing 737-800 said his biggest hope, of finding him alive, was unrealistic. A retiree in his 60s who asked that his full name not be used, Zhang had driven with his son on Tuesday from the southern city of Shenzhen. "I hope the country can thoroughly investigate this matter and find out whether it is the manufacturer's fault or a maintenance problem," he said Wednesday. "I came with my son and planned to stay until the matter is sorted out and take his ashes back. But this depends on the work of the government," he said. Dozens of family members congregated at the heavily-secured checkpoint leading to the site in Teng county in southern China's Guangxi region in pairs or small groups on Wednesday. Some arrived in government convoys, accompanied by officials. Zhang's nephew, in his 40s and surnamed Sun, lived in the eastern city of Nanjing with his wife and two sons. He worked in water conservation and had been on a business trip when the China Eastern jet crashed on its way from Kunming in the southwest to the coastal metropolis of Guangzhou. "To start with... I just felt shocked about the news," Zhang recalled during a break in heavy rain that disrupted search efforts, speaking slowly and holding back tears.<br/>
US Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said Wednesday that China’s civil aviation authority had invited the US NTSB to take part in the investigation of the crash of a China Eastern Airlines Boeing 737-800. “I am very encouraged that the Chinese civil aviation authorities invited NTSB to participate and be on the ground there,” Buttigieg said. “The (Federal Aviation Administration) will stand ready to support NTSB any way that they can.”<br/>
The US NTSB said on Wednesday it has not yet determined if it will travel to China to take part in the investigation into the China Eastern Airlines Boeing 737-800 crash. The NTSB noted that “travel to China is currently limited by visa and COVID quarantine requirements. We are working with the Department of State to address those issues with the Chinese government before any travel will be determined. ” <br/>
Vietnam Airlines will temporarily suspend regular flights from Hanoi to Moscow starting from March 25 until further notice, the state run Vietnam News Agency (VNA) reported on Wednesday. The suspension was to review procedures, requirements and regulations related to flight operations in Russia, VNA reported. The two countries have close ties dating back to the Soviet era and Vietnam has not so far condemned Russia's invasion of Ukraine.<br/>