China says found plane crash debris, mostly near main impact point

China Eastern Airlines plane crash in Wuzhou

WUZHOU, China (Reuters) – China has found 183 pieces of debris from the China Eastern Airlines jet that crashed, including engine blades and turbine parts, with most of the wreckage in an area 30 metres around the main impact point, Chinese officials said on Thursday.

The priority now is search and rescue, said Zhu Tao, an official from the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC), at a news conference, when asked if U.S. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) investigators would be invited to take part in investigations.

The search area on Thursday is expected to be 1.5 times larger than that on Wednesday, Zheng Xi, head of the Guangxi Fire and Rescue Corp, told reporters, adding that more human remains have also been retrieved.

(Reporting by Martin Quin Pollard; Writing by Stella Qiu and Ryan Woo; Editing by Alison Williams)

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