Dozens of relatives of the victims have been waiting for days as rescue teams combed the wooded slopes for plane wreckage and signs of survivors of Monday’s crash near Wuzhou City in Guangxi Province. “All 123 passengers and nine crew members on China Eastern Airlines Flight MU5735 were killed aboard the ship on March 21,” Hu Zhejiang, deputy director general of China Civil Aviation Authority, told a news conference. “The identities of the 120 victims have been determined by DNA identification.” Aviation officials confirmed that they had found a black box that they believed was the voice recorder in the cockpit, which should provide important clues as to the cause of the crash. The incident has puzzled aviation authorities, who have been searching rough ground for evidence of what is almost certain to be China’s deadliest plane crash in nearly 30 years. The disaster prompted an unusually quick public response from President Xi Jinping, who ordered an investigation into the cause as aviation authorities promised a two-week extended inspection of China’s huge passenger fleet. The safety message spreads to all areas after the crash. A statement from the State Council and the Ministry of Emergency Management on Wednesday called on industries in all sectors to “correct potential security risks”.
