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Second Flight Recorder Recovered in Jan. 3 Sharm el-Sheikh Crash - 2004-01-18


The second flight recorder has been retrieved from the sunken wreckage of the Egyptian plane that crashed into the Red Sea two weeks ago, killing all 148 people on board.

A French-led search team, using a submarine robot, recovered the cockpit voice recorder on Sunday.

The second of two black boxes should hold the conversations between members of the flight crew in the moments before the Boeing 737 crashed.

But an Egyptian investigator, Shaker Qilada, was quoted by AP as saying that the cockpit voice recorder is not in good condition because of the crash impact and the depth of more than 1,000 meters at which it was found.

The plane's other so-called black box, the flight data recorder, was recovered Saturday. Investigators in Cairo have begun to analyze its contents, which should provide more information about the plane's final movements.

Both recorders were tracked along the sea bed by radio signals.

The Egyptian charter plane plunged into the Red Sea shortly after taking off from the resort town of Sharm El-Sheikh on January 3, killing everyone on board. Almost all the passengers were French tourists returning to Paris.

Officials hope the flight recorders will reveal what exactly caused the crash. Egyptian officials believe some kind of mechanical failure is to blame for the disaster, and not terrorism.

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