EgyptAir black boxes badly damaged, likely to prolong probe

Earlier, the Egyptian Civil Aviation Ministry said it has started unloading the memory unit of the cockpit voice recorder of the EgyptAir passenger jet that crashed last month, official sources.

He was employed by gold mining firm Centamin, which has offices in St Helier.

The two recorders could aid investigators in understanding what caused the plane, an Airbus A320, to crash into the Mediterranean Sea.

The Egyptian investigation committee said preparations were under way to transfer the two recorders to Alexandria where they will be received by an official from the general prosecutor’s office and investigators.

If the recorders have suffered minor damage, they will be repaired in Egypt but any potentially major repairs will be done overseas under committee supervision. Little is known about what happened to the plane; however; automatic electronic messages were sent from the plane indicating that smoke detectors went off in the toilet and in the area below the cockpit just minutes before the plane disappeared. Greek investigators say it veered 90 degrees before turning another 360 degrees in mid-air; it then quickly lost altitude before it vanished from air traffic controllers’ radar screens.

The black boxes are usually located in the tail, so finding the wreckage and one of the devices narrows the search.

The cockpit voice recorder captures sounds from the flight deck, including flight crew conversation, alarms and background noise that can help investigators understand what the flight crew was doing.

Russian authorities said that the incident was caused by a bomb. Investigators also hope the black boxes will offer clues as to why there was no distress call.

What caused the flight to suddenly disappear from radar as it cruised over the Mediterranean with 66 people aboard has been the subject of intense speculation. The second is the flight data recorder, which would contain technical information on the engines, wings and cabin pressure.

That crash claimed by the Islamic State group’s affiliate in the Sinai and blamed by Moscow on an explosive device planted on board the aircraft decimated Egypt’s tourism industry, which had already been battered by years of turmoil in the country.