US investigators fly to China to aid in plane crash probe

BEIJING (AP) — U.S. accident investigators have arrived in China to help authorities look for clues into what caused last month’s crash of a Boeing jetliner with 132 people aboard. The Civil Aviation Administration of China said the seven-member team from the National Transportation Safety Board will participate in the investigation of the crash of a China Eastern Airlines Boeing 737-800. As part of that assistance, the plane’s cockpit voice recorder is being downloaded and analyzed at a U.S. lab in Washington. Investigators hope the recording will explain why the plane went into a nosedive from about 8,840 meters over a mountainous region of southeastern China.