EgyptAir update - CVR lokalisert (BBC) - Curt Lewis

Searchers Report Finding EgyptAir Wreckage PARIS - Searchers in the Mediterranean have found the first sunken wreckage of the EgyptAir flight that mysteriously veered off course and plunged from 37,000 feet last month, the Egyptian government reported Wednesday. All 66 people aboard the jetliner, EgyptAir Flight 804 bound for Cairo from Paris, were killed in the still-unexplained crash on May 19, as the plane was on the final leg of its trip in Egyptian airspace. News of the discovered wreckage was reported in a statement from the Egyptian Aircraft Accident Investigation Committee, established by the government to find out what happened to the plane, an Airbus A320. The statement said a search vessel, the John Lethbridge, had found and "identified several main locations of the wreckage" and that investigators had been provided with photographic images taken from the seabed, roughly 10,000 feet below the surface. There was no immediate word on the precise location of the wreckage or whether it included the data recorders that are essential for helping determine why the plane crashed. The discovery was the first significant breakthrough in the search for the plane since investigators said they had detected signals from one of its two flight recorder beacons, or "pingers," nearly two weeks ago. With the battery life of those beacons expiring by next week, investigators are hoping to retrieve the recorders - which contain cockpit conversations and data from the plane's onboard computers - before they fall silent. Investigators and search teams will begin mapping the debris field on the ocean floor, the Egyptian committee said. Even in the absence of the data from the flight recorders, air accident experts have said that the distribution of the wreckage would yield significant clues. If the debris contains large pieces of the plane that are concentrated in a relatively small area, that would suggest that the plane hit the water largely intact. Smaller debris scattered across a wide area would suggest that it broke up in midair - possibly the result of an explosion. Remi Jouty, the director of France's air accidents bureau, which is advising Egypt in the investigation, said last week that investigators were still "very far" from understanding what may have caused the crash. Earlier this week, the Egyptian authorities appeared to back away from suggestions that Flight 804 had disappeared abruptly from radar screens - a scenario that had fanned theories that the plane might have been brought down by a terrorist bomb or other deliberate act, rather than a mechanical or other failure. In a statement published Monday, the Egyptian investigation committee said it had validated radar data provided by the Greek authorities in the days after the crash that indicated that the plane had swerved abruptly off course, first making a sharp left turn before veering to the right and spiraling down into the sea. With the wreckage found, the French Navy said it had recalled its survey ship, the Laplace, from the search zone. Investigators aboard the John Lethbridge will now deploy an underwater robot and sonar equipment to locate the flight recorders and bring them to the surface. The Egyptian authorities this week invited experts from the United States National Transportation Safety Board to join the EgyptAir crash investigation team, as well as engineers from Honeywell, the manufacturer of the flight recorders. Besides the radar tracks now confirmed by both the Greek and Egyptian authorities, the only confirmed data received from the plane were a series of seven automated messages sent to an EgyptAir maintenance base. Those messages included two smoke alerts - one in a bathroom, and another in an electronics bay near the cockpit and close to many of the plane's computerized control systems. But while the alerts indicate that there was an emergency on board, experts have said they are not sufficient to explain the disaster.

Wreckage of EgyptAir jet spotted, committee says On June 1, Specialized locator equipment on a French vessel La Place detected signals from the seabed in the Mediterranean Sea, an Egyptian investigative committee. The French Aircraft Investigation Committee later said it had confirmed the signals were from one of the aircraft's black boxes -- the flight data and cockpit voice recorders.EgyptAir CAIRO -Egypt on Wednesday said that it spotted and obtained images from the wreckage of the EgyptAir plane flying from Paris to Cairo that crashed into the Mediterranean last month, killing all 66 people on board, according to a statement by the country's investigation committee. The committee said in a statement that a vessel, the John Lethbridge, contracted by the Egyptian government to join search efforts for the data recorders and the wreckage "had identified several main locations of the wreckage." It added that it obtained images of the wreckage. The next step, the committee said, will be drawing a map showing the wreckage location. The vessel is equipped with sonar and other equipment capable of detecting wreckage at depths up to 6,000 feet (1,830 meters). The EgyptAir Airbus A320 had been cruising normally in clear skies on an overnight flight on May 19. The radar showed that the doomed aircraft turned 90 degrees left, then a full 360 degrees to the right, plummeting from 38,000 feet (11,582 meters) to 15,000 feet (4,572 meters) before disappearing at about 10,000 feet (3,048 meters). The cause of the crash still has not been determined. Ships and planes from Egypt, Greece, France, the United States and other nations are searching the Mediterranean Sea north of the Egyptian port of Alexandria for the jet's voice and flight data recorders, as well as more bodies and parts of the aircraft. Egypt's civil aviation minister has said he believes terrorism is a more likely explanation than equipment failure or some other catastrophic event. But no hard evidence has emerged on the cause, and no militant group has claimed to have downed the jet. Leaked flight data indicated a sensor detected smoke in a lavatory and a fault in two of the plane's cockpit windows in the final moments of the flight. Since the crash began, only small pieces of wreckage and human remains have been recovered in a search that has been narrowed down to five-kilometer (three-mile) area of the Mediterranean. Wednesday's announcement came after Egyptian investigators said that time is running out in the search for the black boxes. They said on Sunday that only five days remain before the batteries of the flight's data and cockpit voice recorders expire and they stop emitting signals. The boxes could reveal whether a mechanical fault, a hijacking or a bomb caused the disaster. Finding them without the signals is possible but more difficult. Voice Recorder From Egyptair 804 Found By Elaine Kauh Egyptair Flight 804’s cockpit voice recorder has been found and is being delivered to investigators following Wednesday’s finding of the airliner’s wreckage in the Mediterranean. A salvage team working off a ship had to take tedious steps to retrieve the recorder as it had been damaged in the crash. "The vessel's equipment was able to salvage the part that contains the memory unit, which is considered the most important part of the recording device," officials said in a Reuters report. The National Transportation Safety Board said Thursday it will join Egyptian and French investigators in the probe, according to Reuters. Two vessels are still searching for the flight data recorder, which is expected to emit signals until around June 24. The Airbus A320 dropped from radar en route from Paris to Cairo with 66 people on board on May 19. Search teams have found debris in the search area and picked up signals from the recorders on June 1. It took until this week to find the main wreckage of the jet as the ocean floor is about 12,000 feet deep in some areas.