Second black box of crashed China Eastern jet not found yet :Xinhua

BEIJING China's official Xinhua News Agency said on Friday (Mar 25) that the second black box of the crashed China Eastern jet has yet to be found.

Earlier, CAAC News, a publication managed by the country's aviation regulator, said that China had found the second black box, but it later deleted the news post from its official social media platforms.

Search and rescue work in the wake of the crash had entered its fourth day as storm clouds retreated with efforts focusing on retrieving the second black box while the first was being decoded and analysed in Beijing.

Emergency workers on the ground have been scouring the forest-clad mountains of China's southern Guangxi region for victims of Flight MU5735. No survivors have been found so far in a tragedy that has shocked the nation.

The jet was en route from the south-western city of Kunming to Guangzhou on the coast when it plummeted from cruising altitude at about the time when it should have started its descent to its destination.

Rescuers recovered the first of the two black boxes on Wednesday. The device, the plane's cockpit voice recorder, has been sent to Beijing. It could take 10 to 15 days to arrive at a preliminary analysis, and longer before a final conclusion can be presented in a report, according to Chinese state media.

Our work priority is still on search and rescue, said Zhu Tao, head of aviation safety at the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC), on Thursday.

The investigation is being led by China, but the United States was invited to take part because the Boeing 737-800 was designed and manufactured there.

When we enter the accident investigation stage, we will invite relevant parties to participate in the accident investigation according to relevant regulations, Zhu said.

US Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said on Wednesday that Chinese authorities had invited the US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) to take part in the investigation, adding that he was very encouraged by the invitation to be on the ground in China.

The NTSB, however, later said that it had not yet determined if investigators would travel to China in light of visa and quarantine requirements.