Wing, engine parts found from Chinese airliner crash

Several pieces of the China Eastern passenger jet that crashed in southern China, including one of its black boxes, were discovered Thursday.

In total, 183 pieces of the plane have been found by officials so far. Engine parts, cockpit items, personal objects belonging to passengers and human remains have been discovered, according to The Associated Press.

Black boxes in planes contain information and voice recordings from the cockpit between pilots, which could tell officials what went wrong causing the flight to crash with 132 people on board. 

The black box found is believed to have voice recordings and was found largely undamaged, except for the outer casting, though its orange cylinder was mostly intact, the AP noted.

One of the items, a 1.3 meter-long fragment believed to be from the plane, was found 10 kilometers from the crash site, which encouraged officials to broaden their search area exponentially, Reuters reported.

There have been no survivors found and experts say that it is virtually impossible that anyone could survive the impact of such a fierce crash, according to the news service.

The investigation into the crash is being spearheaded by Chinese officials, though the United States is reportedly being invited to take part because the Boeing jet was manufactured and designed in the U.S.

The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board said that it has not yet been decided if investigators would go to China because of the country’s strict visa and quarantine requirements and Chinese officials did not specify exactly when the American investigators would be invited, Reuters noted.

“Our work priority is still on search and rescue, and at the same time, carrying out evidence collection and fixation work in the early stage of accident investigation.” Zhu Tao, a Chinese civil aviation administration official, said, according to Reuters.