EgyptAir flight MS804’s black boxes to be sent to France for repair

The Ministry of Civil Aviation issued a statement on Thursday, saying that the black boxes of crashed EgyptAir flight MS804 will be sent to France next week to be repaired.

The Airbus A320 was en route from Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport to Cairo International Airport when it crashed into the Mediterranean Sea in the early hours of May 19. All 66 passengers and crew members on board the flight are believed to have died in the crash. 

The specialist vessel John Lethbridge recovered the flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder, the two black boxes, from the wreckage of flight MS804 on June 16 and June 17. However, the Ministry of Civil Aviation reported that both devices have incurred damage that has not allowed investigators to conduct test readings. The Egyptian investigative team will accompany the devices’ memory units to France for the repair operations and the removal of salt accumulation, according to the ministry. 

The repair will take place at the French governmental agency, the Bureau of Enquiry and Analysis for Civil Aviation Safety (BEA), and, upon completion, the devices’ memory units will be transported back to Cairo, where the data analysis will be conducted in the Ministry of Civil Aviation's laboratories, according to the ministry’s statement. Egyptian investigators are being supported by French experts from the BEA and Airbus, in addition to the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), an independent US government investigative body specializing in civil aviation accidents. US investigators are involved in the proceedings as the plane's engines were manufactured by a US-led consortium.

These analyses should help unearth the reasons behind the crash. The flight data recorder keeps an account of the instructions sent to the plane’s electronic systems, while the cockpit voice recorder stores an audio account of the flight, including pilots' conversations. Representing the most accurate data in investigations into crashes, the devices are sometimes housed in a single orange-colored unit and are required to survive the dire conditions of a crash, which include high temperature and gravitational impact.

The Ministry of Civil Aviation has also stated that Deep Ocean Search-operated John Lethbridge, which Egypt contracted to conduct deep-sea searches, is continuing its efforts to locate plane wreckage and victims' corpses and remains. French and Egyptian forensic medics are accompanying the specialist vessel. The search is taking place in what is believed to be the crash zone, an area approximately 290 kilometers north of the Egyptian coastline. 

On Wednesday, Prime Minister Sherif Ismail issued a decree officially declaring the victims of flight MS804 dead.

French newspapers signaled that the details emerging from the investigation suggest that a technical error caused the plane to crash, rather than the intentional sabotage, which would feature in a terrorist attack. Egypt has publicly judged this position to be prematurely issued. 

No one has claimed responsibility for the crash. 

On May 21, the BEA claimed that the EgyptAir flight sent out a distress signal indicating that smoke had been detected on the plane. 

On May 19, at a press conference held in Athens, Greece’s Defense Minister Panagiotis Kammenos, in whose country's airspace MS804 flew shortly before it crashed, stated that the plane made “sudden swerves,” 90 degrees to the left and then 360 degrees to the right, before falling, according to radar data.