Search teams on Friday recovered the second flight recorder of an EgyptAir plane from the bottom of the Mediterranean that could prove vital in establishing the cause of the unexplained crash.


Flight MS804 from Paris to Cairo disappeared from radar screens in the eastern Mediterranean last month with 66 people on board, and a vast search operation has since scoured swathes of sea off Egypt’s northern coast.

Egyptian investigators said search teams managed to recover the Airbus A320’s flight data recorder, which gathers information about the speed, altitude and direction of the plane a day after they retrieved its cockpit voice recorder.

The data recorder, which experts termed “the most important part” of the probe, was found in several pieces, according to investigators. It was not immediately clear how much of its data would be useable, but Cairo’s civil aviation authority said on Thursday that salvage experts had managed to retrieve the voice recorder’s crucial memory unit despite extensive damage to the black box.