According to a statement by Egypt’s investigation committee, the memory unit of the EgyptAir flight that crashed in the Mediterranean last month was found.
The plane crash killed all 66 people on board.
The committee reported that John Lethbridge, the vessel operated by U.S. company Deep Ocean Search under a contract with the Egyptian government, found main locations of the wreckage. The wreckage was located between the Greek island of Crete and the Egyptian coast.
The memory unit of the plane’s cockpit voice recorder was also found. If the data from the unit is able to be retrieved, it could cause major developments in the investigation. The cockpit voice recorder is meant to capture the last 30 minutes of audio from inside the cockpit. The search continues for the other black box, the flight data recorder. It logs information on the function of the plane’s systems, location, and other data.
The EgyptAir Airbus A320, flight MS804, was traveling from Cairo the Paris normally in clear skies overnight on May 19. The aircraft plummeted from 38,000 feet to 15,000 feet and disappeared at about 10,000 feet. Reports show a sensor detected smoke in a lavatory and a fault in two of the plane’s cockpit windows during the last moments of the flight. The cause of the crash is unknown. Ships and planes from Egypt, Greece, and the United states among other nations have been searching the Mediterranean Sea for the jet’s black boxes, parts of the aircraft, and more bodies.
Egyptian investigators have said that they are running out of time looking for the black boxes. On Sunday, they said that almost two weeks remain before the batteries of the flight’s data and cockpit voice recorders stop sending signals. The purpose of finding the boxes is to reveal whether a mechanical fault, hijacking, or bomb caused the malfunction. Investigators are relying on the black boxes to provide information as to why no distress call was issued.
