EgyptAir black box signal deadline nears

Search boats are working against the clock to retrieve the black boxes from the crashed EgyptAir jet before their signals stop on June 24.

Egyptair airways desktop

The Egyptair airways stand after the accident of the EgyptAir flight MS 804 Paris to El Cairo, March 19, 2016 in Barcelona, Spain. Source: Getty Images

The flight data recorders from an EgyptAir jet that crashed in the Mediterranean last month are expected to stop emitting signals on June 24, Egyptian investigators say.

Without the black boxes, investigators say there is not enough information to explain why flight MS804 crashed on May 19, killing all 66 people on board.

The Egyptian-led investigation committee said in a statement on Monday that it had accepted a request by the United States' National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) to have a representative join the investigation team.

The plane's engines were built by a consortium led by the US firm Pratt & Whitney.

The country where the engines were built is often invited to take part in an air crash investigation, although it is not compulsory.

Investigators also said on Monday that radar imagery obtained from the Egyptian military confirmed previous reports based on Greek and British radar data indicating that the plane had swerved in mid-air before crashing.

Egyptian Air Navigation had previously said that the plane suddenly disappeared off the radar at cruising altitude about 11 kilometres.

Those comments contradicted the Greek defence minister's account on the day of the crash that the plane had turned sharply to the left, then 360 degrees to the right before disappearing from radar at 4km.

That conclusion is important, said one aviation source, because it goes some way to excluding the possibility that the plane was brought down by a mid-air explosion.

France's air accident investigation agency, the BEA, which is advising Egypt on the underwater search, has said that one of the search ships has continued to pick up locator signals from one black box.

To recover the black boxes from the seabed, 3000 metres below the surface, investigators will need to pinpoint the signals to within a few metres and establish whether the pingers are still connected to the recorders.


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Source: AAP


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EgyptAir black box signal deadline nears | SBS News