Civil aviation experts have cleaned the two flight data recorders from the airliner that crashed on Sunday and scrutinized the welding spots on them, Wu Anshan, a security and safety expert from the Civil Aviation of China (CAAC) told Xinhua News Agency on Thursday.

Wu said that damage to the cabin voice recorder is unlikely to hinder decoding efforts, but it may still take some time. Both instruments have been taken to Beijing for study.

The Shanghai-bound jet fell to the ground on Sunday morning shortly after taking off from Baotou, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. All of the 47 passengers and six crew members were killed, along with two people on the ground.

China Eastern's General Manager Li Fenghua apologized to the public at a press conference on Wednesday and discredited rumors about the cause of the crash.

Li called allegations that the fuel pressure system of the aircraft was not warmed up properly because the plane took off 10 minutes ahead of schedule groundless.

He said it is normal for a plane to take off 15 minutes before or after its schedule departure, adding that the system needs no preheating at all.

Li also refuted assertions that his airline used fuel of inferior quality on the plane, saying all the fuel used conforms to CAAC standards.

He also said that his airline has scrutinized safety procedures in line with CAAC guidelines and that Sunday's crash was not the result of a poor safety check.

Meanwhile, a China Eastern A300 passenger jet made a forced landing on Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport at 4 AM on Thursday because of a pressurization failure.

(China Daily November 26, 2004)