TAIPEI, Taiwan -- Taiwan investigators say that cockpit recordings from a China Airlines jet that mysteriously broke up last month, killing 225 people, reveal a series of unusual sounds.
Minutes before the Boeing 747-200 went down, the recorder picked up a noise that sounded like a human heart beat, followed by a series of "ka ta, ka ta, ka ta," wire reports quoted Kay Yong, the chief investigator at Taiwan's Aviation Safety Council, as tellling reporters on Sunday.
The last noise was a sharp "thud" before the power went off, he said.
Several Boeing 747 pilots who listened to the tape said the sounds were not normal in the cockpit, Yong said.
"I do not know what the sound is," Yong said, adding the probe into the jet's crash off Taiwan's western coast is still in the fact-finding stage.
Declining comment on possible causes for the sounds, he repeated on Sunday that the pilots' conversations did not indicate any problems.
Each sound lasts a fraction of a second. Investigators could not say if they were related to the crash, "but at this moment, we'd rather be more suspicious," Yong said.
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