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A man who posed for a picture with an alleged hijacker wearing a suspected suicide belt has said he was trying to get a better look at the device.
The image of Ben Innes, grinning next to his captor on the Egyptair flight, has gone viral on social media.
Mr Innes, based in Aberdeen, also told the Sun newspaper he wanted to "stay cheerful in the face of adversity".
Hijacker photo man Ben Innes explains Egyptair plane snap - BBC News
The announcement came a day after officials said they had found the wreckage of the Airbus A320 and are putting together a map of the debris on the seabed. Such images will help investigators determine whether the plane broke apart in the air or stayed intact until it struck the water, aviation experts said. The wreckage of the Paris-to-Cairo flight is believed to be at a depth of about 3,000 meters (9,800 feet). Previously, search crews found only small floating pieces of debris and some human remains. The cockpit voice recorder was recovered in "several stages" by the search vessel John Lethbridge, operated by Deep Ocean Search and equipped with a Remotely Operated Vehicle, the Egyptian Aircraft Accident Investigation Committee said.
Although designed to survive a crash and fire, the recorder had sustained damage, and only its memory unit - "the most important in the recorder" - was recovered unharmed, it said, without elaborating on the extent of the damage. "This is a great achievement in a short period of time," said Abdel-Fattah Kato, the former head of EgyptAir who is not involved in the investigation. "We are close to finding out what happened to the plane." The device, which records the pilots' conversations and other noises from the cockpit, has been taken to the Egyptian port city of Alexandria, where it will be turned over to investigators for analysis. Experts say that it takes nearly 48 hours to retrieve information from the recorder.
Search teams will continue looking for the second so-called "black box" - the aircraft's flight data recorder, which carries such information as how a plane is functioning, including its airspeed, altitude, the status of key system and the pilots' actions. Both devices are kept in the tail of the plane. The voice recorder provides investigators with cockpit interactions that "add a lot of insight into what occurred," said Anthony Roman, a pilot and president of the security consultants Roman & Associates. But he said the search teams will also want the flight data recorder, because it will help put together a "picture of events that occurred." Flight 804 disappeared from radar about 2:45 a.m. local time on May 19 between the Greek island of Crete and the Egyptian coast.
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The official didn’t elaborate on how long the repairs would take but said if this cannot be done in Egypt, the so-called ‘‘black boxes’’ would be sent abroad. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to speak to the media. With the wreckage of the Airbus A320 some 3,000 meters under water, the cockpit voice and flight data recorders are vital for piecing together the last moments of the flight, which plunged into the sea between the Greek island of Crete and the Egyptian port city of Alexandria on May 19, killing all 66 on board.
Earlier in the day, Egypt’s investigation commission said the flight data recorder had been pulled out of the sea, a day after the cockpit voice recorder was also recovered. Both were brought to Cairo for analysis. The memory units inside the recorders 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 to why the pilot made no distress call before the crash.
Experts say the data, combined with previously obtained satellite and radar images, debris analysis, the plane history, and the pilots’ records, can shed light on the most possible scenarios. No militant group has claimed bringing down the aircraft. ‘‘We will be having a wealth of information that helps the investigators eliminate some possibilities while giving priority to others,’’ said Hani Galal, an Egyptian aviation expert. He is not involved in this crash investigation but has taken part in other similar probes. EgyptAir Flight 804, enroute to Cairo from Paris, disappeared May 19 from radar at about 2:45 a.m local time, just as it had entered Egyptian airspace. Radar data showed the aircraft had made violent moves after cruising normally in clear skies, plummeting from 38,000 feet to 15,000 feet. It disappeared when it was at an altitude of about 10,000 feet.
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. Egypt’s civil aviation minister, Sherif Fathi, has said that terrorism is a more probable cause than equipment failure or some other catastrophic event. Families of the victims are losing hope the remains of their loved ones can be recovered intact from the seabed so long after the crash, but knowing what had caused it could bring closure. ‘‘Finding answers to our many questions will give us some relief,’’ said Malek Zayada, speaking over the phone from the Sudanese capital, Khartoum. His brother, Mohammed Saleh Zayada, was one of the passengers on the doomed flight.
EgyptAir black boxes badly damaged, likely to prolong probe - The Boston Globe
The recorders are being flown to the offices of the French aviation accident investigation bureau near Paris, which has better equipment for extracting the information than is available in Egypt, the official said. The official was not authorized to publicly discuss developments in the investigation and spoke on condition of anonymity.
The recorders, also known as black boxes, were extensively damaged when EgyptAir Flight 804 traveling from Paris to Cairo plunged into the sea on May 19, killing all 66 people on board. French and U.S. investigators have overseen the effort to extract information from the recorders. The recorders are made by Honeywell, a U.S. company. The plane, an Airbus A320, is made by an aircraft maker based in France.
The black box memory units typically provide investigators with critical data, including the pilots' conversations, details about how the plane's engines, navigation systems, and auto-pilot were working, and even information about smoke alarms. The pilots made no distress call before the crash, and no group has claimed to have brought down the aircraft.
US official: Investigators can't download EgyptAir recorders
