Search and rescue teams have found a black box and human remains at the China Eastern Airlines crash site, state media said, citing Chinese officials late Wednesday. An airplane’s black boxes are two sets of technical equipment — one that captures flight data, and another that records cockpit communications with air traffic controllers. Analyzing that data could reveal reasons for the crash. The black box found Wednesday is likely the cockpit voice recorder, while the search continues for the other, Zhu Tao, director of the aviation safety office at the CAAC, said Wednesday night. The box has been shipped overnight to a professional civil aviation agency in Beijing for data analysis, Zhu said, noting the process would take time. The box’s storage unit appears relatively complete, although the exterior was severely damaged. Authorities haven’t confirmed any fatalities or shared why the crash happened. Honeywell manufactured the two black boxes on the crashed Boeing plane, China’s civil aviation authority news account said, citing Wednesday’s press conference. Rescue teams have sent human remains found at the crash site on to investigators, state media added, citing the same press event.<br/>
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China's official Xinhua news agency has contradicted earlier reports signalling the discovery of the second black box from the downed China Eastern Airlines jet that plunged into a mountainside with 132 people on board. Xinhua reported the box had not yet been recovered, despite CAAC News - a publication managed by the country's aviation regulator - earlier reporting the flight data recorder had been found. It later deleted the news post from its official social media platforms. The cockpit voice recorder from the plane, which plunged into a mountainside with 132 people on board, was recovered on Thursday. Debris from the jetliner including engine blades, horizontal tail stabilisers and other wing remnants was concentrated within 30 metres of the main impact point, which was 20 metres deep. One 1.3 metre-long fragment suspected to be from the plane was found about 10km away, prompting a significant expansion of the search area, officials told a news briefing. <br/>
The pilot of the China Eastern Airlines flight that crashed in southern China with 132 people aboard was an industry veteran with more than 6,000 hours of flying time. His co-pilot was even more experienced, having flown since the early days of China’s post-Mao era, training on everything from Soviet-model biplanes to newer Boeing models. Together, the men operating Flight 5735 had more than 39,000 hours of flying experience, the equivalent of four and a half years nonstop in the cockpit, adding to the mystery of why the plane plunged from a cruising altitude of 29,000 feet into a wooded mountainside on Monday. How they piloted the Boeing 737 will be closely examined as investigators seek to explain what is probably China’s worst air disaster in more than a decade. Experts have said it is unlikely that anyone survived the crash. On Thursday, rescuers said they had found engine components, part of a wing and other “important debris” as they searched the mountainside in a rural part of the Guangxi region for a fourth day. A four-foot-long piece of debris suspected to be from the plane was found more than six miles from the main crash site, said Zheng Xi, the commander in chief of the Guangxi Fire Rescue Corps. As a result, search teams will widen the area they are combing, he added. At the main crash site, a state broadcaster showed the workers digging with shovels around a large piece of wreckage that the reporter described as a wing, which bore part of the China Eastern logo and was perched on a steep, barren slope fringed by dense thickets of now-flattened bamboo. Heavy rains had left the roads slick and inundated the earth with muddy pools. A day earlier, the workers had found a black box, believed to be the cockpit voice recorder, which could provide investigators with crucial details. Officials said it was damaged but that its memory unit was relatively intact. The plane’s second black box, which records flight data, has yet to be recovered. China Eastern officials have described the crew as having no health problems or faults on their records. Their past performance was “very good,” Sun Shiying, the chairman of China Eastern Airlines’ Yunnan branch, said on Wednesday. When reached by phone, an airline representative declined to answer further questions about the crew.<br/>
At least one piece of the Boeing 737-800 that crashed in China appears to have broken loose well before impact, a finding that adds mystery to the plane’s fatal dive. The piece suspected to have come from the China Eastern Airlines jet was found about 10 kilometers from the main wreckage area, Chinese officials said at a briefing Thursday. If investigators confirm that the part came from the jet, it would indicate the plane suffered some kind of midair breakup, which could offer clues about what led to Monday’s crash or at least shed light on the flight’s final seconds. “The questions are: exactly what piece was it and when did it come off?” said Jeff Guzzetti, the former chief of accident investigations at the US FAA. Flight 5735 from Kunming to Guangzhou went down without an emergency radio call from pilots, slamming into a forested hillside about 100 miles from its destination, according to the Civil Aviation Administration of China. There were 132 people aboard. The highly unusual dive has baffled crash investigators and safety experts. Aircraft such as the 737-800 are designed not to dive so aggressively, so some kind of aircraft failure or pilot action would be required to keep its nose pointed down for so long. A piece about 1.3 meters long and 10 centimeters wide believed to be from the plane was found on farmland, Zheng Xi, head of the Guangxi fire-fighting rescue team, said at a briefing. It’s impossible to know at this early stage in the investigation whether the piece came loose as a result of stresses during the high-speed plunge or broke off before the sudden descent. Guzzetti said it most likely occurred as the plane plummeted from a cruising altitude of about 29,000 feet in about 1 minute and 35 seconds. “In my view, that’s the aircraft shedding parts as it’s coming down,” he said. If that’s the case, it would provide clues about the plane’s speed and possible pilot maneuvers. <br/>
Italy’s Treasury has picked Equita and Gianni & Origoni as financial and legal advisers for the sale of stakes in ITA Airways, two sources close to the matter said Thursday, as Rome intensifies efforts to find strategic partners for the carrier. ITA took over from Alitalia in October, permanently grounding the 75-year-old, one-time symbol of Italian style and glamour after years of financial losses and failed rescue attempts. Shipping group MSC and Germany’s Lufthansa have expressed interest in buying a majority stake in ITA and are waiting to gain formal access to sensitive data on the state-owned airline. The government, which is entitled to inject E1.35b into the carrier over three years as agreed with EU authorities, approved a decree on February listing ways to sell ITA Airways under an open and market-based procedure. Rome prefers to keep the door open to other potential suitors, government officials said at the time.<br/>
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine so far has not dented summer demand for travel between North America and Europe, despite fears soon after Russia’s invasion of its neighbor last month that Europe’s recovering tourism industry could suffer from the fallout, Air France CEO Anne Rigail said at the Skift Forum Europe in London on March 24. “At the beginning of the war, bookings were paralyzed for a few days,” Rigail said at the event. “We were wondering if [American] passengers would fear coming to Europe because of the war, but we have not seen this,” she said, adding that booking momentum for summer travel has picked back up. But that isn’t to say the French flag carrier has not been affected by the war, which broke out on Feb. 24, when Russia invaded Ukraine. Fuel prices are rising, and Air France will have to raise fares this summer. Economy-class fares on roundtrip flights to North America could rise by $33, and in business class by $110, she said. “It will hurt for sure,” Rigail said. The fare increases will come despite Air France having hedged — or insured itself — much of its energy costs. Fuel typically is an airline’s second-largest expense, after labor. Unlike most US airlines, European carriers hedge much of their fuel costs. Air France has hedged more than 70 percent of its fuel costs for Q1 and Q2, which takes the sting out of rapidly rising oil prices, which soared past $100 per barrel for the first time since 2014 in the immediate aftermath of Russia’s invasion. Although oil prices have retreated from their high of close to $130 per barrel in late February, the price of industry benchmark Brent crude remains at $112 per barrel as of March 24. Hedging “won’t be enough to avoid” raising fares, Rigail said. Story has more.<br/>