French, Italian firms to help search for EgyptAir black boxes
Egypt has asked European firms to help search for the black boxes of an EgyptAir plane that crashed on May 19 in deep water in the Mediterranean Sea, the airline's chairman and French diplomatic sources said on May 25.
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Nearly a week after EgyptAir flight 804 crashed with 66 people on board, including 30 Egyptians and 15 from France, investigators have no clear picture of its final moments.
EgyptAir chairman Safwat Musallam did not name the French and Italian companies involved but told a news conference they were able to carry out searches at a depth of 3,000 meters.
Two French diplomatic sources said Egyptian authorities and France's BEA air accident investigation agency were finalizing a contract with two French companies, Mauritius-based Deep Ocean Search and Alseamar.
"The objective is to go extremely quickly so they can find the boxes that are probably in very deep waters," said one source.
The source said the costs of the contract would be shared between France and Egypt. Neither source was aware of talks with the Italian company.
The plane and its black box recorders, which could explain what brought down the Paris-to-Cairo flight as it entered Egyptian air space, have not been located.
The black boxes are believed to be lying in up to 3,000 meters of water, on the edge of the range for hearing and locating signals emitted by the boxes.
Maritime search experts say this means acoustic hydrophones must be towed in the water at depths of up to 2,000 meters in order to have the best chance of picking up the signals.
