Rescuer recalls tough task
Seven-day operation at China Eastern crash site recovers black boxes, debris
Search and rescue work at the crash site of a China Eastern Airlines plane has ended, an official said on March 31. Rescuers like Teng Xingwen can finally breathe after what he described as an intense mission.
The national emergency response headquarters dispatched more than 34,000 search and rescue personnel, 216 fire engines, 16 unmanned drones and 30 sets of construction machinery to the site in Tengxian county, Wuzhou, Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region.
The team recovered both black boxes from flight MU5735 and 49,117 pieces of aircraft wreckage and debris, said Zhu Tao, head of the Civil Aviation Administration of China’s Aviation Safety Office.
Workers searched more than 400,000 square meters in the core area and excavated 22,700 cubic meters of earth, he added.
The flight was heading to Guangzhou, Guangdong province, from Kunming, Yunnan province, when it crashed into a mountainous area in Tengxian on March 21.
The national emergency response headquarters confirmed on March 26 that all 132 people on board had died.
Teng, 28, was part of the first team sent to the site. He said he was copying notes at the duty station in Nanning, Guangxi’s capital, on the afternoon of the accident when he heard the alarm ring. His captain asked him to pack and leave for Wuzhou.
“It was only once we were on the way that I learned what had happened, on my phone, and I had the feeling I was getting involved in something huge. I only had one thought, that as long as there was even a glimmer of hope, I should work a hundred times harder,” he said.
The team arrived at 9 pm and pitched tents while waiting for orders. Teng called his mother that night, breaking down in tears as he told her that he was at the crash site and was helping with the rescue.
The team began searching the mountainside in the early hours of the morning. As they got close, Teng said that he saw aircraft debris scattered “like snowflakes” everywhere.
Dressed in protective suits, the rescuers wore diapers to avoid having to take off the suits to relieve themselves. “It was my first time wearing adult diapers, and I felt a little embarrassed,” Teng said.
He was assigned to the rope team, which was responsible for searching steep, difficult slopes. The weather made rescue work harder.
On the night of March 23, a thunderstorm hit, with heavy rain falling all night. The following day, the team was told to expand the search area and to spare no effort in locating the plane’s black boxes. As Teng was searching the lower slopes of the mountain, his legs once sank deep into the mud and he had to be tugged to safety by his captain.
He said it was hot and stuffy and that many of the rescuers showed symptoms of heatstroke. When they took off their boots, the sweat “poured out like rainwater”.
“After a day of work, my goggles were all misted up and pressed down uncomfortably on my nose and ears. The best moment all day was getting the chance to down a large bottle of mineral water,” he said, adding that every evening when they returned to the station, they were too exhausted to eat.
“Even though it was very hard, we gritted our teeth and persevered. We were all thinking, ‘hang in there a little longer, try to find the black boxes’,” he added.
The first black box was found on March 23, and the second on March 27. Both have been sent to Beijing for decoding.
On March 27 afternoon, a memorial ceremony for the victims was held at the site of the search and rescue operation. At 2 pm, vehicle horns echoed through the fields, while some relatives of the victims stood in silence for three minutes facing the direction of the crash. Teng and his team returned to Nanning later that day.