Black box from Paris-Rio flight recovered
Search teams have recovered part of a black box flight recorder from the Air France plane that crashed into the Atlantic en route from Rio de Janeiro to Paris in June 2009 with a loss of 228 lives. But the part retrieved does not contain the key data which could reveal why the plane crashed.
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A statement from France's Bureau of Investigation and Analysis, BEA, said the chassis that held one of the recorders was discovered a day after a salvage ship began working to retrieve bodies and wreckage using Remora submarines.
Investigators announced they had found the main wreckage in early April on the fourth and final attempt.
"During the first dive by the Remora 6000 which lasted more than 12 hours, the chassis of the flight recorder was found, without the module protecting and containing the data," said the BEA statement.
The official cause of the accident remains uncertain, but suspicion has fallen on malfunctioning speed sensors used by Airbus. Air France has been accused of not responding quickly enough to reports that they were faulty.
Investigators and Airbus have stressed that without the black box flight recorders the mystery of the plane's last moment may never be solved.
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