Naval survey vessel equipped with deep-water devices headed for search zone in eastern Mediterranean Sea, officials say.
A French naval vessel is joining the hunt for black boxes from a crashed EgyptAir jet in the eastern Mediterranean Sea, according to France’s BEA air-crash-investigation agency.
The BEA said French naval survey vessel Laplace had left Corsica earlier on Thursday and was heading towards the search zone north of the Egyptian port of Alexandria, where it would begin operations within days.
“A deep-water search campaign will begin in the coming days with the arrival in the accident area of the French navy surveillance vessel La Place,” said the BEA.
A week after the Airbus A320 crashed with 66 people on board, including 30 Egyptians and 15 from France, investigators have no clear picture of its final moments.
However, Egyptian investigators said a radio signal had been received from an emergency distress beacon usually located in the rear of the cabin.
This could help narrow the search area for that part of the fuselage, near the tail where “black box” fight recorders are held, to a 5km radius, they said.
Two BEA investigators were on board the La Place ship as it set sail from Corsica on Thursday.
The vessel is equipped with three deep-water devices known as Detector 6000s that can detect the black boxes’ signals, the French agency said.
It said the Egyptian authorities “will be piloting these underwater searches” with the BEA’s help.
Talks are still under way to add to the mission a second vessel equipped with a deep-sea exploration robot and the recovery capabilities required to work at an estimated depth of 3,000 metres.
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