Search teams looking for wreckage from EgyptAir flight MS804 have detected a signal allowing them to narrow the area they are searching in the Mediterranean sea.
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It is separate from the underwater locator beacons (ULB) or “pingers” attached to the “black box” flight recorders, which send out acoustic rather than radio signals and are created to be more easily detected underwater.
Al-Muqaddam said search teams are racing against time “under hard conditions” to find the black boxes, whose batteries last for only 30 days – eight of which have already passed.
Instead, the signal that was picked up came from one of the devices on the plane transmitting its location.
France’s air accident investigation agency has said a French naval ship which specialises in underwater searches will help search for the black boxes.
Officials still don’t know what caused the flight to disappear.
No new radio signal has been received from an EgyptAir jet since the day it crashed in the Mediterranean last week, sources close to the investigation say.
All Egyptian officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release the information.
Search crews will reportedly reduce the search area from a 64-kilometre radius down to a five-kilometre radius with new hope of discovering the jet’s black boxes.
With no flight recorders to check and only fragmentary data from a handful of fault messages including two smoke alarms, investigators are also looking to debris and body parts for clues. DNA tests are underway to identify the remains.
BEA says discussions are taking place over the provision of a second vessel with undersea robotic retrieval capabilities.
France and Egypt will hire two private firms to help in the hunt for the black boxes from the EgyptAir plane. A member of the Egyptian investigation team trying to understand why Flight MS804 crashed into the Mediterranean on May 19 on a journey from Paris to Cairo, killing all 66 passengers, told the Associated Press some of the body parts recovered show signs of a possible explosion on board.
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Egyptians light candles during a candlelight vigil for the victims of EgyptAir flight 804, in Cairo, Egypt, Thursday, May 26, 2016.
