Civil aviation experts have cleaned the two flight data
recorders from the airliner that crashed on Sunday and scrutinized
the welding spots on them, Wu Anshan, a security and safety expert
from the Civil Aviation of China (CAAC) told Xinhua News Agency on
Thursday.
Wu said that damage to the cabin voice recorder is unlikely to
hinder decoding efforts, but it may still take some time. Both
instruments have been taken to Beijing for study.
The Shanghai-bound jet fell to the ground on Sunday morning
shortly after taking off from Baotou, Inner
Mongolia Autonomous Region. All of the 47 passengers and six
crew members were killed, along with two people on the ground.
China
Eastern's General Manager Li Fenghua apologized to the public
at a press conference on Wednesday and discredited rumors about the
cause of the crash.
Li called allegations that the fuel pressure system of the
aircraft was not warmed up properly because the plane took off 10
minutes ahead of schedule groundless.
He said it is normal for a plane to take off 15 minutes before
or after its schedule departure, adding that the system needs no
preheating at all.
Li also refuted assertions that his airline used fuel of
inferior quality on the plane, saying all the fuel used conforms to
CAAC standards.
He also said that his airline has scrutinized safety procedures
in line with CAAC guidelines and that Sunday's crash was not the
result of a poor safety check.
Meanwhile, a China Eastern A300 passenger jet made a forced
landing on Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport at 4 AM on
Thursday because of a pressurization failure.
(China Daily November 26, 2004)