Chinese authorities say one of the black boxes from an airliner that dived vertically into a hillside with 132 people on board has been found, but in a severely damaged condition.
The recorder was so damaged that authorities were initially unable to tell whether it was the flight data recorder or the cockpit voice recorder.
China's aviation authority said on Wednesday the black box retrieved from the site of the China Eastern Airlines plane crash is a cockpit voice recorder, according to an early assessment.
The data storage units in the black box are relatively complete despite some damage, Zhu Tao, an official with the Civil Aviation Administration of China, told a media briefing.
The black box has been sent to Beijing, Mr Zhu said.
Earlier, rain in southern China halted the search for victims from the China Eastern plane, which crashed on Monday.
Flight MU5735 was en route from the south-western city of Kunming, capital of Yunnan province, to Guangzhou in Guangdong province bordering Hong Kong, when the Boeing 737-800 jet suddenly plunged from cruising altitude at about the time when it would normally start to descend ahead of its landing.
The cause of the crash in the mountains of Guangxi region has not yet been determined, with aviation authorities warning that their investigation would be very difficult because of the severe damage to the aircraft.
Mao Yanfeng, the director of the accident investigation division of the Civil Aviation Authority of China, said that an all-out effort was being made to find the other black box.
Desperate and grief-stricken relatives of people who had been onboard visited the crash site on Wednesday. Among them was a retiree surnamed Zhang from Shenzhen whose eyes filled with tears as he told Reuters that his nephew was on the doomed flight.
China Eastern grounds entire fleet
China had made great strides in improving air safety standards over the past two decades, and the disaster was the first major crash in a dozen years.
It prompted the aviation regulator to launch a two-week inspection of the sector that will involve checks at all regional air traffic control bureaus, airline companies and flight training institutes to ensure "absolute" safety.
Since the crash, China Eastern and two subsidiaries have grounded their fleet of more than 200 Boeing 737-800 jets.
The last commercial jetliner to crash in mainland China was in 2010, when an Embraer E-190 regional jet flown by Henan Airlines went down.
Having rushed to Guangxi on Monday to oversee the emergency operations, Vice-Premier Liu He held a meeting during which officials were urged to go "all out in their search as long as there is a glimmer of hope" for survivors.
Officials were also instructed to release information "in accordance with the principles of timeliness, accuracy, openness and transparency", according to state media reports.
The broader aviation sector was ordered to carry out special checks to prevent any other major accidents.
At the first news conference held by the government late on Tuesday night in Guangxi, an aviation official said the 737-800 jet that crashed had met airworthiness standards before take-off and crew members had been in good health.
The disaster comes as Boeing seeks to rebound from several crises, notably the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on air travel and safety concerns over its 737 MAX model following two deadly crashes.
China Eastern also faces deepening losses and closer regulatory scrutiny following the crash.
Reuters/AP
