China Eastern sets a zone at the airport in Guangzhou, the scheduled destination of the crashed flight, to receive family of victims. Photo: VCG

China has issued visas to National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) investigators and technical advisors from the FAA, Boeing and CFM to travel to China to support the CAAC's China Eastern B-737 accident investigation, the NTSB told the Global Times on Wednesday. 

The team is expected to depart this week, it said. 

The NTSB team will not release any information about the investigation as that authority belongs to the Chinese government under ICAO Annex 13, it noted. 

Days ago on March 24, the NTSB confirmed to the Global Times that it is working with the US, Chinese officials to solve visa and COVID quarantine issues before participating in crash investigation efforts in China.

The NTSB said it was notified of the accident on March 21 by the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC), and the accredited representative and technical advisors have been appointed, and they are in contact with the CAAC investigator-in-charge. 

If they come to China, NTSB investigators will assist in the investigation of the MU5735 crash. At the same time, the participation of NTSB investigators can make the investigation more comprehensive and reflect the principle of openness and fairness, Wang Yanan, chief editor of Beijing-based Aerospace Knowledge magazine, told the Global Times on Wednesday. 

A China Eastern Boeing-737 with 132 people onboard crashed last Monday in South China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.

On Sunday, the two black boxes of MU5735 had been found and sent to a professional laboratory in Beijing, where the decoding work is being carried out.

China is fully engaged in search and rescue work and will carry out accident investigation in accordance with laws and regulations while maintaining communication with relevant parties, Wang Wenbin, spokesperson of the Foreign Ministry, said at the routine press conference on March 24. 

Regarding an invitation to participate in the China Eastern Boeing 737-800 accident investigation, under the provisions of the International Civil Aviation Organization's Annex 13, the State of Design and Manufacture (in this case, the US) is entitled to appoint an accredited representative to participate in the investigation.

The NTSB is an independent US federal agency responsible for investigating and determining the probable cause of every US civil aviation accident, as well as investigating major accidents by road, rail, sea, and other modes of transportation. 

The NTSB has been involved in numerous international flight accident investigations, including the 2014 incident of Malaysia Airlines flight MH370. 

As of 2015, the agency had investigated more than 140,000 aviation accidents, according to the NTSB's report to the US Congress.

Global Times