US investigators fly to China to aid in plane crash probe

US accident investigators have flown to China to help authorities there probe last month’s deadly crash of a Boeing jetliner.

The National Transportation Safety Board said the team departed for China on Friday to participate in the Civil Aviation Administration of China’s investigation of the crash of a China Eastern Airlines Boeing 737-800 in which all 132 people on board were killed.

As part of that assistance, the plane’s cockpit voice recorder is being downloaded and analysed at a US lab in Washington, federal officials said Friday.

Investigators hope the recording will explain why the plane went into a nosedive from about 8,800 meters (29,000 feet) over a mountainous region in southeastern China.

Chinese officials have said that air traffic controllers were unable to get a response from the pilots while the plane was descending.

The cockpit voice recorder would pick up voices and other sounds from microphones worn by the pilots and another stationed over their heads.

Searchers also recovered the plane’s flight-data recorder, which constantly captures speed, altitude, heading and other information and the performance of key systems on the aircraft, but that recorder was not being evaluated in Washington on Friday.

The NTSB said its investigators will limit contact with people outside the investigation so that they can start their work immediately without going through a quarantine period.

The plane that crashed was not a 737 Max, a newer model that was temporarily grounded worldwide following two deadly crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia.

The impact caused by the crash in China created a 20-meter- (65-foot-) deep crater, set off a fire in the surrounding forest and smashed the plane into small parts scattered over a wide area, some of them buried underground. More than 49,000 pieces of debris have been recovered, along with some human remains and personal items.