WASHINGTON, March 22 (NNN-AGENCIES) — The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) said it had appointed a senior air safety investigator as a US accredited representative to the investigation of the crash of a China Eastern Airlines Boeing 737-800 near Wuzhou, China.
Representatives from Boeing, CFM, a joint venture of General Electric and Safran that produced the engines, and the Federal Aviation Administration will serve as technical advisers, the NTSB added.
Under an international agreement, the United States can serve as a representative to the crash probe since the plane was manufactured in the United States.
It is not clear if or when the NTSB will travel to the crash site in China.
After a 2018 Boeing 737 MAX crash in Indonesia, the NTSB immediately dispatched investigators to Indonesia to participate in the Indonesian government’s investigation.
Then NTSB Chair Robert Sumwalt said in 2019 testimony before Congress that during the search for the “black boxes” – flight data recorder (FDR) and cockpit voice recorder (CVR) – “an NTSB investigator was stationed onboard one of the search vessels.”
Boeing Chief Executive Dave Calhoun told employees that the planemaker has offered the full support of its technical experts in the investigation of the crash.
Calhoun said in an email to employees he was limited by what Boeing could say about the investigation being led by the Civil Aviation Administration of China.
“Trust that we will be doing everything we can to support our customer and the accident investigation during this difficult time, guided by our commitment to safety, transparency, and integrity at every step,” Calhoun said.
No survivors have been found as the search continued Tuesday of the scattered wreckage of a China Eastern plane carrying 132 people that crashed a day earlier in a forested mountainous area in China’s worst air disaster in a decade.
“Wreckage of the plane was found at the scene, but up until now, none of those aboard the plane with whom contact was lost have been found,” state broadcaster CCTV said Tuesday morning, more than 18 hours after the crash.
The Boeing 737-800 crashed near the city of Wuzhou in the Guangxi region while flying from Kunming in the southwestern province of Yunnan to the industrial center of Guangzhou along the east coast. — NNN-AGENCIES
