Cockpit voice recorder from crashed Egyptair flight MS804 found

The Egyptian investigation committee announced that the John Lethbridge, a vessel operated by Mauritius-based company Deep Ocean Search on behalf of the Egyptian Government, had been able to recover the memory unit from the cockpit voice recorder from crashed EgyptAir flight MS804.

“The device was damaged and the retrieval process was conducted in several stages,” the committee said in a statement.

The Airbus A320, which had 66 people aboard, crashed May 19 in the Mediterranean Sea on a flight from Paris to Cairo. Authorities have been searching for wreckage and the plane’s flight data and cockpit voice recorders for insight into what happened.

The recorder is being transferred to Alexandria where it will be received by members from the general prosecution and the investigation committee.

Egypt’s aviation safety record has been in question following the crash of Metrojet flight 7K9268 in the Sinai peninsula in October 2015. Isis’s branch in Sinai later claimed responsibility for the attack, displaying a picture of the drinks can they say was used to smuggle a bomb on board the craft.

While Germany recently lifted its ban on direct flights to Sharm el-Sheikh, several other European nations have yet to do so.

Egypt hired the British firm ControlRisks to conduct a security review of airports in Sharm el-Sheikh, Marsa Allem and Cairo following the crash, part of ongoing efforts to restore confidence in Egypt’s security. Tourism, once a key part of Egypt’s economy, has been decimated by the Metrojet and EgyptAir crashes, despite continued efforts to find out what brought down MS804.

 

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