Crashed Egyptair plane's black boxes 'extensively damaged'

The voice and data recorders from the EgyptAir plane that crashed into the Mediterranean are "extensively damaged" and will need repairing before they can be analysed, an Egyptian official has said.

The cockpit voice and flight data recorders are vital for piecing together the last moments of the flight which plunged into the sea, killing all 66 on board.

The black boxes can provide key data, including the last conversations inside the cockpit, information about auto-pilot mode or even smoke alarms. They might also give answers as to why the pilot made no distress call before the crash.

The cause of the crash of the Airbus A320 has not been determined and no militant group has claimed responsibility for bringing down the aircraft between Crete and Alexandria on May 19.

Leaked flight data indicated 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 from Paris to Alexandria.

Egypt's civil aviation minister, Sherif Fathi, has said terrorism is a more probable cause than equipment failure or some other catastrophic event.

Egyptian authorities have said they have retrieved the second flight recorder in the search for the crashed airliner, Flight MS804.

On Wednesday, search teams retrieved the cockpit voice recorder from the Mediterranean Sea.

Investigators will hope the breakthrough will explain what caused the plane to go down.

The Airbus A320 plunged into the sea en route from Paris to Cairo on May 19, killing all 66 people on board.

Search teams have retrieved the cockpit voice recorder from the EgyptAir plane which crashed into the Mediterranean last month.

The recovery comes after crash investigators confirmed on Wednesday that wreckage from the plane had been spotted by a deep sea ocean search vessel.

The Airbus A320 plunged into the sea en route from Paris to Cairo on May 19, killing all 66 people on board.

Egypt's investigation committee said the specialist search vessel was forced to salvage the device in stages because it was extensively damaged, but was able to retrieve the memory unit.

The second black box, which contains the flight data recorder, has yet to be found. It is expected to stop emitting signals in about a week.

Wreckage from the crashed EgyptAir flight MS804 has been "spotted" by search crews, a committee investigating the crash has confirmed.

According to the Egyptian Investigation Committee the deep sea ocean search vessel John Lethbridge identified several main locations of the flight wreckage and has provided images of the wreckage to investigators.

The search zone for the crashed EgyptAir plane has been narrowed to 2 km (1.24 miles) from 5 km after a signal from one of the black boxes was picked up, an Egyptian source on the investigation has revealed.

It is hoped retrieving the flight data recorders will explain why the Airbus A320 plummeted into the Mediterranean en route from Paris to Cairo last month, killing all 66 people on board.

The source denied French media reports the aircraft had sent a series of warnings during earlier flights in the 24 hours before it disappeared off radar screens and crashed.

Transport Minister Alain Vidalies said it would be about eight days before the black box of flight MS804 would be recovered from the seabed.

• Plane 'showed no technical problems on take-off'
• Egypt official: Plane explosion theory is premature

A French ship has picked up signals from the depths of the Mediterranean Sea which is presumed to be from black boxes of crashed plane, Egyptian officials have told Associated Press.

Investigators are searching in some of the deepest waters of the Mediterranean for flight recorders from the Airbus A320 which crashed on May 19, killing 66 people.

The jet's flight recorders or "black boxes" are designed to emit acoustic signals for 30 days after a crash.

The doomed EgyptAir plane that crashed last week did not show technical problems prior to take off in Paris, Egyptian investigation sources said on Tuesday.

Egypt's state-owned newspaper Al-Ahram reported that the aircraft showed no technical difficulties before taking off, citing an Aircraft Technical Log signed by its pilot.

Al-Ahram published a scan of the technical log on its website.

The paper said EgyptAir flight transmitted 11 "electronic messages" on May 18 about three-and-a-half hours before disappearing from radar screens with 66 passengers and crew on board.

The first two messages indicated the engines were functional.

At 00.26GMT on May 19, the third message appeared and showed a rise in the temperature of the co-pilot's window.

The plane kept transmitting messages for the next three minutes before vanishing, Al-Ahram said.