Second flight recorder of crashed EgyptAir plane recovered

The black box was retrieved at dawn by a specialized undersea search vessel operated by the Mauritius-based company Deep Sea Search, the Egyptian-led investigative committee said in a statement. Both were brought to Cairo for analysis. The other “black box”, though, the flight data recorder, is still missing. They might also give answers to why the pilot made no distress call before the crash.

The data recorder is usually located in the plane’s tail along with the voice recorder, which had to be salvaged in stages on Thursday because it was extensively damaged.

The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for that attack within hours, but there has been no such claim linked to the EgyptAir crash.

According to Greek investigators, the plane turned 90 degrees left and then 360 degrees to the right, dropping from 11,300m (37,000ft) to 4,600m (15,000ft) and then 3,000m (10,000ft) before it was lost from radar.

Besides the black boxes, key components to be sought include the aircraft’s flight computers, which sent out error messages alongside others indicating smoke alarms before the plane crashed.

Last month, Egyptian Civil Aviation Minister Sherif Fathy said that a terrorist act appeared a more likely cause than mechanical failure.

The latest findings raise hopes that investigators will be finally able to determine the cause of the crash and whether the plane broke apart in the air, or stayed intact until it struck the water.

The crew of the John Lethbridge, a research vessel involved in the search, found the wreckage of the plane, the cockpit voice recorder and the flight data recorder.

Some debris from the plane – including life vests, passenger belongings and pieces of wreckage – have already been found.

While the statement didn’t elaborate on the condition of the recorder, it implied that the memory unit had been safely recovered.

“Depending on what we can get from this black box, it could allow us to know exactly what happened”, aeronautics expert Jean Serrat said.

The two blackbox recorders are crucial to explaining what went wrong.

The discovery comes a day after the aircraft’s cockpit voice recorder was spotted and recovered. Investigators said earlier that they had narrowed down search area to a five-kilometer (three-mile) radius of the Mediterranean.

Galal warned against “jumping into conclusions” and added that the public should not expect investigators to “come up with answers tomorrow”.