24 Jun 2016

EgyptAir's flight recorders to be repaired

3:35 pm on 24 June 2016

Damaged flight recorders from the EgyptAir aircraft that crashed last month will be sent to France for repairs, Egyptian investigators say.

They say memory chips from Flight MS804 that contain vital information will be delivered to French experts next week.

The Airbus A320 was en route from Paris to Cairo when it vanished from radar in the eastern Mediterranean on 19 May.

All 66 people on board the plane were killed. Some debris from the plane has since been recovered from the sea.

In a statement, the Egyptian investigative committee said the two recorders would be sent to France's BEA accident experts to remove salt deposits from the memory chips.

An EgyptAir plane is seen parked the terminal in Istanbul Airport Ataturk on May 20, 2016. Debris including seats and personal belongings from EgyptAir Flight 804 which crashed in the Mediterranean carrying 66 people on Thursday was found 180 miles north of Alexandria,

An EgyptAir plane is seen parked the terminal in Istanbul Airport Ataturk on 20 May. Photo: AFP

They will then be returned to Egypt for analysis.

It is hoped the recorders - which contain the pilots' conversations and technical parameters of the flight - could help determine the cause of the crash.

The Airbus A320 was flying overnight from Paris to Cairo when it vanished from Greek and Egyptian radar screens, apparently without having sent a distress call.

Some wreckage from the plane was later found some 290km north of the Egyptian port city of Alexandria.

On Thursday, the Egyptian committee also said that French experts would join their Egyptian colleagues to try to retrieve human remains from the sea.

A specialist vessel is still continuing an operation to map the wreckage.

- BBC