Flight MU5735 Fragments Recovered From Crash Site

Grieving relatives have visited the crash site in southern China

As the mystery into the China Eastern Airlines plane crash continues, a recovery team has collected more than 33,000 fragments of the passenger jet.

The fragments could help the investigation with clues as to what may have happened to the jetliner, authorities said at a press conference Monday.

Authorities continue to search for more parts of the Boeing 737-800 and human remains from the crash site. Boeing 737-800 NGs typically have about 600,000 components.

Zhu Tao, director of safety at the Civil Aviation Administration of China, said the fragments could help the investigation because data from flight recorders often don’t fully explain what went wrong, Bloomberg reported.

The plane, which was carrying 132 people on board, crashed on March 21 into a hillside near Wuzhou in southern China, CGTN reported.

Investigators are analyzing the parts and talking to witnesses of the crash, who took videos, which may help the probe, Zhu said. The remains of all 132 people on board have been identified, authorities said, adding identification with the use of DNA analysis was underway.

Decoding work on the aircraft’s two black boxes is also underway in Beijing. The exteriors of both the black boxes are severely damaged, but the data within seems to be retrievable.

Investigators found the cockpit voice recorder last Wednesday and the flight data recorder Sunday.

Flight data revealed the plane plunged out of the sky at close to the speed of sound before slamming into the mountain, causing a fire. The impact of the plane created a 65-foot-deep pit at the crash site and scattered debris along the side of the mountain. The plane was cruising at 29,000 feet when it suddenly nose-dived. Air traffic control attempted to contact the pilots several times after noticing the plane’s drop in altitude, but received no answer.

An expert said the pilots may have already become unconscious during the steep descend. Many reasons – such as technical failures like engine malfunction, airplane body structure damage, or even bird strike – may have led to the passenger jet's steep descent. Human factors such as pilot error or an external attack could also have caused the crash.