Strong underwater currents thwarted the efforts of searchers yesterday to retrieve the flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder -- the so-called "black boxes" -- of the China Airlines plane that plunged into the sea with 225 people on board, officials said.
The attempt to retrieve the black boxes, which search crews determined on Wednesday were at a longitude of 119'40, north latitude 23'58, was disrupted by strong ocean currents, said Minister of Transportation and Communications Lin Lin-shan (
Choppy seas also hampered efforts yesterday to salvage a huge piece of wreckage of the crashed plane, measuring 40m by 10m by 6m, located near the site of the black boxes, Lin said.
But research vessels from National Taiwan Ocean University and National Taiwan University, which are part of the search team, salvaged three pieces of wreckage yesterday, Lin said.
One of the pieces recovered measures 3m by 6m, with the other two measuring 7.5m by 7.5m, Lin added.
Eight fishing boats that jointed the search effort yesterday failed to recover any bodies or debris. The boats sailed south from Hsinchu, using the trawl nets to conduct retrieval efforts some 30m beneath the water's surface, Lin said.
So far, more than 95 bodies -- victims both from Taiwan and China -- have been recovered, leaving more than half of the plane's passengers still missing.
The recovery of the black boxes is expected to shed light on what caused the Boeing 747-200 to split into four pieces at an altitude of more than 9,144m last Saturday afternoon after taking off from the CKS Airport en route to Hong Kong.
Also commenting on the crash yesterday, President Chen Shui-bian (
Chen also attended a ceremony in Taipei yesterday to show his respects for the victims of the crash.
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