French ship ends search effort for EgyptAir plane remains

The cockpit voice recorder from doomed EgyptAir Flight 804 was at least partially recovered from the Mediterranean Sea, Egypt’s investigation committee said Thursday, giving rise to hope that mysteries surrounding the May 19 crash could soon be solved.

A retrieval vessel with the Mauritius-based company Deep Ocean Search has managed to identify the black box’s location, sources at the Egypt-led investigation committee said.

It added that the Lethbridge had obtained images of the wreckage located between the Greek island of Crete and the Egyptian coast.

The plane disappeared on May 19 with 66 passengers and crew on board, while flying from Paris to Cairo.

This is a major breakthrough for the investigators seeking to explain what caused the Airbus A320 to crash.

“Only the black boxes could contribute to a full understanding of the chain of events which led to this tragic accident”.

The recordings from an EgyptAir flight that crashed off the U.S. in 1999 capture the first officer repeating to himself: “I rely on God”. Earlier this month, French vessels participating in the search for the downed plane detected the signals of one the flight recorders in the eastern Mediterranean.

The crash comes after the bombing of a Russian airliner over Egypt’s restive Sinai Peninsula last October that killed all 224 people on board.

The plane went missing while on the way from Paris to Cairo last month and plunged into the sea.

The wreckage the government said it found Wednesday had been strewn across several places. No terror group has claimed responsibility for bringing the plane down.

The cockpit voice recorder is to be handed to prosecution officials and investigators in Alexandria.

Egypt’s Civil Aviation Minister, Sherif Fathy, said that the box had been destroyed, but that its data storage unit was recovered and sent to investigators.

Signals from the flight data recorders needed to track them down on the seabed are expected to expire on June 24.