"Compensation also depends on the negotiation results between the airline and the family. Of course, the government level, such as the Civil Aviation Administration, will be involved in this compensation decision."
Seven days have passed, and the truth of the "3.21" China Eastern Airlines flight accident is one step closer.
At the accident site, about 1.5 meters below the surface, on the morning of March 27, the second black box of the passenger plane, the flight data recorder (FDR), which was wrapped in mud, was found.
At about 16:30 on the 23rd, at the main impact point of the accident site, about 20 meters to the southeast, one of the two flight recorders was found in the surface soil - confirmed by experts as the cockpit voice recorder (CVR), which has been After finding it, send it to Beijing for decoding.
On the afternoon of March 21, flight MU5735 crashed in Teng County, Guangxi.
The tragic impact occurred in an instant, and there were 132 people on the plane, and no one survived.
On the afternoon of the 27th, a collective mourning event for the victims of the "3.21" China Eastern Airlines MU5735 aircraft flight accident was held at the search and rescue site where the incident occurred, expressing condolences to the victims.
All the staff of the National Emergency Response Headquarters and the search and rescue personnel at the accident site stood solemnly in the direction of the crashed plane and observed three minutes of silence to express their condolences to the victims.
At present, the headquarters is still making every effort to organize and carry out the search for aircraft wreckage, remains and various physical evidence materials, continue to do a good job in the aftermath, and simultaneously carry out accident investigations.
Second black box found 1.5 meters below the surface
Zheng Xi, commander-in-chief of the Fire Rescue Corps of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, said at a press conference that at about 9:20 on March 27, a search team was 5 degrees south by east of the impact point in the core area and 40 meters away from the impact point. Manual fine excavation, when the fire rescue personnel excavated to a depth of about 1.5 meters below the surface, after opening a tree root, they found a cylindrical metal tank wrapped in mud and only exposed a little orange.
After purging and cleaning the dust on the surface of the metal tank, a clear English logo was revealed.
The metal can was quickly handed over to civil aviation experts for repeated identification and confirmed to be the second black box of the crashed plane.
At the eighth press conference of the National Emergency Response Headquarters for the MU5735 aircraft flight accident held on the afternoon of the 27th, Zhu Tao, the aviation safety inspector of the Civil Aviation Administration and director of the Aviation Safety Office, introduced that the fire rescue personnel searched an area of about 3,000 square meters that day. Some remains, 9 relics related to the identities of the victims and 729 pieces of aircraft wreckage were recovered, and 1,228 people were decontaminated.
As of 12:00 on the 27th, a total of 33,777 pieces of aircraft wreckage and debris had been searched on the scene, and witnesses were found through visits, and new video related to the accident was found about 8 kilometers north of the incident site.
Zhu Tao also revealed that after inspection, other parts of the second "black box" were seriously damaged, and the appearance of the data storage unit was relatively intact.
At present, part of the storage unit of the recorder has been sent to a professional laboratory in Beijing for decoding.
The found flight data recorder records the detailed information of the aircraft during the flight, which can reproduce the process of the accident.
The previously found cockpit voice recorder can restore the conversations of the crew in the cockpit, and the recording time is about two to three hours.
Finding the black box is an important task after every air crash.
After the black box is found, it needs to be sent to a professional laboratory for decoding, and the information inside can be interpreted through data download.
Recorder data download usually encounters three situations: one is that the recorder is not damaged at all; the other is that the recorder is damaged, but the data storage unit is in good condition; the third is that the recorder memory chip is damaged.
Different situations require different handling methods.
For a recorder that is not damaged at all, it is necessary to connect the recorder body to the dedicated download device and power supply, and then power on the recorder after confirming that the connection is correct; after power-on, use the dedicated download device to download data, and then use the dedicated decoding software. Analyze the downloaded data.
If the recorder is damaged, whether it is the appearance or the recorder circuit board and other components, but the data storage unit is in good condition, then the data download needs to first remove the data storage unit from the damaged recorder, and after cleaning and inspection, take out the storage unit. chip, check the memory chip.
If the appearance of the memory chip is intact, install the memory chip into another intact recorder of the same type, and then follow the normal recorder data download steps.
If it is found that the memory chip of the recorder is damaged, usually according to the recommendations of the recorder manufacturer, the memory chip needs to be returned to the recorder manufacturer for chip repair.
According to Yicai, the black box of the crashed plane of China Eastern Airlines was produced by Honeywell of the United States. If it is found that the memory chip is seriously damaged, it needs to be sent to the original manufacturer of the equipment for repair before downloading.
It is worth noting that just in January 2021, a flight of Indonesia's Sanfoqi Airlines had a plane dive and finally crashed into the sea. The Indonesian Civil Aviation Authority still recovered data from it, and thus investigated the cause of the accident.
There is a preliminary investigation report within 30 days, and the claim is initiated
However, it is not enough to judge the cause of the accident only through the data in the black box. The investigation team also needs to investigate the personnel at the accident site and conduct simulation analysis experiments combined with physical evidence.
Mao Yanfeng, director of the Civil Aviation Administration's Accident Investigation Center, introduced that the second black box found on the 27th was a flight data recorder. The data in it can provide real and objective evidence for the analysis of the cause of the accident. Later, investigators need to record the data from the two recorders. , and the evidence of on-site investigation, air traffic control radar data, land and air calls between the crew and air traffic control units, data link transmission information between the aircraft and the ground, witness interviews, etc. s reason.
Relevant departments will continue to complete the search task according to the deployment of the general headquarters, and search for as many remains of the victims as possible.
In the later stage, efforts will be made to collect aircraft wreckage to provide support for subsequent accident investigations.
On March 26, Mao Yanfeng revealed that the found wreckage of the aircraft has also been handed over to the accident investigation team. After confirming which part of the aircraft belongs to one by one, the classification number will be saved. The important wreckage will be experimentally verified to provide support for the accident investigation.
After the investigation is over, the wreckage of the aircraft will be returned to the owner of the aircraft, who also has the right to keep it permanently.
Mao Yanfeng also introduced that according to the provisions of the Chicago Convention, the preliminary investigation report of the accident should be sent to the relevant participating countries and the ICAO within 30 days (sent in the working language of ICAO, both Chinese and English), that is, the Civil Aviation Administration should be within 30 days. Submit a preliminary investigation report to ICAO.
Liu Xiaodong, director of China Eastern's publicity department, said on the 27th that the company has officially started the claim settlement work, and will fully respect the reasonable demands of the family members in accordance with relevant national laws and regulations, communicate with the family members about the details of the plan, formulate a claim settlement plan, and determine a unified compensation standard.
The company has set up a full-time team to be responsible for this claim settlement, opened a dedicated claim settlement line for the family members, and actively communicated and negotiated with the family members online and offline.
According to the Shanghai Securities News, the aircraft was insured by the chief insurer of PICC Property & Casualty, Guangdong Branch of Ping An Property & Casualty Co-insured all risks and liability insurance for the aircraft body, and China Pacific Property & Casualty underwritten the China Civil Aviation United Insurance Fleet Aviation insurance.
Up to now, more than 60 insurance companies have launched emergency plans.
Since the Malaysia Airlines MH370 air crash in March 2014 was rather special, the survivors or victims, the wreckage of the plane and the black box have not yet been found. Therefore, it is more meaningful to compare the compensation plan for the domestic civil aviation accident in an earlier period.
According to public information, the 2010 Yichun air crash killed 44 people and injured 52 others.
The airline increased the compensation limit from 400,000 yuan to 592,300 yuan, plus the living allowances and consolation funds for the relatives of the passengers who died, and the total compensation for each victim's family was 962,000 yuan, setting a record for China's aviation accident compensation so far. the maximum amount.
"Compensation also depends on the negotiation results between the airline and the family. Of course, the government level, such as the Civil Aviation Administration, will be involved in the compensation decision." The senior lawyer said in an interview with the media that the investigation of the cause of the air accident generally takes a long time, which is very difficult for more than two years. Well, it's hard to draw conclusions yet.
In addition, aircraft manufacturers may also face liability.
The Indonesian Lion Air plane that crashed in October 2018 and the Ethiopian Airlines plane that crashed on March 10, 2019 were both Boeing 737 MAX 8s.
A total of 346 people were killed in the two crashes.
The reasons behind the crash all point to a design flaw in the automatic flight control system of this particular type of Boeing aircraft. The families of the victims have filed a lawsuit in the U.S. federal court in Chicago, where Boeing is headquartered, for compensation.
Author: Chen Shanshan