The second recorder containing data from the flight that crashed in China was recovered on Sunday.
It could help solve the mystery of the plane's dizzying fall in minutes.
The China Eastern Airlines Boeing 737-800, which linked the Chinese cities of Kunming (southwest) and Guangzhou (south), had disintegrated on Monday on a wooded hill in Wuzhou (south), in the province of Guangxi.
The causes of the disaster, which killed all 123 passengers and nine crew members, are not yet known.
All the people on board the plane were of Chinese nationality.
The first flight recorder, which contains conversations in the cockpit, was found on Wednesday and sent to Beijing for analysis.
This analysis should still take several days.
Discovery at 1.5 meters deep
Sunday morning, a new “orange cylindrical object was unearthed,” Zhu Tao, director of aviation safety at the Chinese Civil Aviation Administration (CAAC), told reporters.
“The investigators present on the spot confirmed (…) that it is the storage unit of the flight data recorder.
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This second black box contains crucial information such as the speed of the aircraft, its altitude and the heading followed.
"While other parts of the recorder were seriously damaged, the data storage unit appears relatively intact" and "has been sent to a professional lab to be decoded," Zhu Tao said.
Public broadcaster CCTV broadcast footage on Sunday of rescuers recovering the black box covered in some dirt.
It was discovered 1.5 meters deep.
The two flight recorders now found, the investigators should obtain within a few days or weeks the first elements of response on the causes of the accident.
The investigation continues
According to the specialized site FlightRadar24, the device providing flight MU5735 had lost nearly 21,250 feet (6,477 meters) in just one minute.
After a brief ascent, he had plunged again, 4,625 feet (1,410 meters), according to the plotter, to be 3,225 feet (983 meters) from the ground.
It then crashed.
According to several experts, these data are relatively unusual.
No suspicion is currently on the captain and his two co-pilots, who respectively accumulated 6,709, 31,769 and 556 flight hours, according to China Eastern.
Based on a preliminary investigation, the service records of these pilots were "very good" and their family situations were "harmonious", the airline said.
Hundreds of rescuers and investigators continue their search at the scene of the tragedy.
Helped by backhoes, they recovered debris from the plane, human remains and any element that could be used for the investigation.
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