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Cairo says ship searching for crashed EgyptAir flight has detected signals EgyptAir 804: ship searching for crashed jet 'detects signals under sea'
(35 minutes later)
Egypt has said that a ship has picked up signals from deep under the Mediterranean Sea, presumed to be from black boxes of the EgyptAir plane that crashed last month, killing all 66 passengers and crew on board. A French ship has picked up signals believed to come from one of the black boxes of EgyptAir flight 804, which crashed in the Mediterranean last month, according to Egyptian investigators.
The civil aviation ministry cited a statement from the committee investigating the crash as saying the French vessel Laplace received the signals. It did not say when the signals were detected, but the French navy confirmed the Laplace arrived in the search area on Tuesday. The civil aviation ministry cited a statement from the committee investigating the crash as saying the Laplace received the signals. It did not say when the signals were detected. Locator pings emitted by flight data and cockpit voice recorders, known as black boxes, can be picked up from deep under water.
Laplace’s equipment picked up the “signals from the seabed of the wreckage search area, assumed to be from one of the data recorders”, the statement read. It added that a second ship, John Lethbridge, which is affiliated with the Deep Ocean Search firm, will join the search team later this week. The EgyptAir Airbus A320 crashed with 66 people on board during a 19 May flight from Paris to Cairo.
Locator pings emitted by flight data and cockpit voice recorders, known as the black boxes, can be picked up from deep underwater. Laplace’s equipment picked up the “signals from the seabed of the wreckage search area, assumed to be from one of the data recorders”, the statement read. It added that a second ship, the John Lethbridge affiliated with the Deep Ocean Search firm, will join the search team this week. The Lethbridge has a robot capable of diving up to 3,000 metres to retrieve the black boxes.
The Airbus A320 had been cruising normally in clear skies on a nighttime flight from Paris to Cairo early on 19 May when it suddenly lurched left, then right, spinning all the way around and plummeting 38,000ft (11,500 metres) into the sea. A distress signal was never issued, EgyptAir has said. Crucially, however, France’s air accident investigation agency made no comment as it has not received any “official communication” from Egyptian authorities.
Since the crash, small pieces of the wreckage and human remains have been recovered while the bulk of the plane and the bodies of the passengers are believed to be deep under the sea. A Cairo forensic team has received the human remains and is carrying DNA tests to identify the victims. The Laplace, which is fitted with devices capable of detecting the locator signals given off by black boxes, joined the search for the flight recorders from the EgyptAir flight on Tuesday afternoon.
David Learmount, a consulting editor at the aviation news website Flightglobal, said the black boxes’ batteries can transmit signals up to 30 days after the crash. But even if the batteries expire, locating the boxes remains a possibility.
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“It’s terribly important to find the black boxes, because if they don’t find them, they will know nothing about the aircraft,” he said, citing a 2009 incident when black boxes were found two years after a crash in the Atlantic Ocean. The plane was carrying passengers of different nationalities, including 40 Egyptians including the crew and 15 French nationals.
Nearly two weeks after the crash off Egypt’s northern coast, the cause of the tragedy still has not been determined. Egypt’s aviation minister had initially said a terrorist attack was more likely to have brought down the plane, but a technical failure was also possible. France’s aviation safety agency has said the aircraft transmitted automated messages indicating smoke in the cabin and a fault in the flight control unit minutes before losing contact.
Egypt’s civil aviation minister, Sherif Fathi, has said he believes terrorism is a more likely explanation than equipment failure or some other catastrophic event. The investigators are searching for the black boxes, which have enough battery power to emit signals for up to five weeks, about 290 km north of the Egyptian coast. The Airbus A320 had been cruising normally in clear skies when it lurched left, then right, spinning around and plummeting 11,582 metres into the sea. A distress signal was never issued, EgyptAir has said.
But no hard evidence has emerged on the cause, and no militant group has claimed to have downed the jet. Leaked flight data has indicated that a sensor had 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, small pieces of the wreckage and human remains have been recovered while the bulk of the plane and the bodies of the passengers are believed to be deep under the sea. A Cairo forensic team has received the human remains and is carrying out DNA tests to identify the victims.
In France, the country’s air accident investigation agency said it could not immediately comment on the developments, since it was yet to receive any “official communication” from Egyptian authorities. Associated Press contributed to this report