Rescuers resume search, locate flight recorder

Many of the passengers on the 22-year-old Boeing 737-200, which plowed into a foggy coconut grove on Samal island on Wednesday, were traveling home for Easter holidays.

Grieving relatives identified 17 of the badly battered and charred remains at a military base where 81 bags of body parts were taken, officials said.

The flight data recorder, one of the plane’s two "black boxes", was recovered early today said Jacinto Ortega, Chief of the Air Transportation Office. It and the cockpit voice recorder, which was located yesterday, will be sent to the US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) for analysis, he said.

Recovery of the flight data recorder was delayed because the plane’s tail section, where it is located, continued smoldering for many hours after the accident, officials said.

The plane, which originated in Manila, was unable to land on its first approach to Davao, a vibrant commercial center in the southern Philippines, because another plane was on the runway, air traffic controllers said.

Meanwhile, in Manila, government sources have ruled out previous complaints about the rudder on Boeing 737-200 aircraft being "an issue" in the crash.

The NTSB said in a report last year that two 737 crashes involving US carriers in 1991 and 1994 were probably caused by an abrupt rudder movement that surprised the crew and sent the planes spiraling into an uncontrollable dive.

"There’s already been an air worthiness directive by the FAA regarding that rudder," Air Transportation Office (ATO) executive director Rolando Luna said, referring to the US Federal Aviation Administration.

The ATO "oversaw the compliance with it about two years ago," he said, "It had already been addressed."

Luna stressed the rudder "was not an issue" in the Philippine air crash inquiry.

Air Philippines president and Chief operating officer Jose Antonio Garcia insisted today that the carrier inspected its fleet "on a regular basis, every aircraft every day when it comes in in the evening."

He said that until the crash, the airline was comfortable with the performance of its 12-plane fleet which included 10 Boeing 737-200 jets. The aircraft which crashed yesterday was delivered to its first owners in 1978 and acquired by Air Philippines in 1996.

"We are in the process of looking into the possibility of acquiring additional aircraft. We are already in discussion with suppliers," he said.