Search parties searching the sea bed off Brazil's northeast coast have recovered the second of two flight recorders from the Air France aircraft that crashed into the Atlantic in 2009, investigators said today.
The discovery of the audio recorder, two days after the flight data recorder was fished up, brings investigators even closer to the cause of the crash as it should hold recordings of cockpit conversations during the flight's final moments.
"The investigation team localised and identified the cockpit voice recorder on Monday, May 2nd, 2011," France's BEA air accident inquiry office said. The device was hauled up to the team's ship at 3.40am.
The Airbus 330-203 airliner plunged into the sea off Brazil en route to Paris from Rio de Janeiro in June 2009 after hitting stormy weather, killing all 228 passengers and crew - including three Irish women.
A BEA spokeswoman said the black box would be shipped back to France, probably by the end of next week.
"The outside appears to be in relatively good shape," she said, adding that it would only be possible to see if the recorder was "usable" once it was opened, which would not happen until it was back in France.
A photograph of the recorder on BEA's website shows a bright orange cylindrical device that looks scuffed and battered but otherwise intact. So-called black boxes are painted orange so that they can be spotted more easily in wreckage.
The discovery of the two flight recorders follows nearly two years of on-off search efforts over a 10,000 sq km area of seabed.
The body of Dr Jane Deasy (27), from Rathgar in Dublin, was recovered during the initial search operation which was carried out shortly after the crash.
Dr Aisling Butler (26) of Roscrea, Co Tipperary, and Dr Eithne Walls (28), from Ballygowan, Co Down, also died in the crash. Their bodies have not yet been found. The three friends were returning from a holiday in Brazil when the aircraft went missing.
Theories about the cause of the disaster have focussed on the possible icing up of the aircraft's speed sensors, which seemed to give inconsistent readings before communication was lost.
Depending on how much data can be retrieved, and how clearly it pinpoints the cause of the crash, lawyers say information from the black boxes could lead to liability claims.
Any fresh conclusions on the cause will also be fed into a judicial inquiry already under way in which Airbus and Air France have both been placed under formal investigation.
Reuters