Search of China crash site suspended as rain slicks slopes
By DAKE KANG and NG HAN GUAN
Associated Press
WUZHOU, China (AP) — The search for clues into why a plane made an inexplicable dive and crashed into a mountain in southern China has been suspended as rain slicks the debris field and fills the red-dirt gash formed by the plane’s fiery impact. Earlier Wednesday, searchers had used hand tools to comb the slopes for the black boxes, a well as any human remains. Crews also worked to pump water from the pit created when the plane hit the ground, but their efforts were suspended around midmorning because landslides were possible. The plane stopped transmitting data 96 seconds into the dive, and an air-traffic controller who tried to contact the pilots after seeing the altitude drop got no reply.