EgyptAir voice recorder found — damaged, but salvaged

The cockpit voice recorder from crashed EgyptAir Flight 804 has been found by search teams who were forced to salvage the device over several stages as it was damaged, the Egyptian investigation committee said on Thursday.

It said in a statement that a specialist vessel owned by Mauritius-based Deep Ocean Search had, however, been able to recover the memory unit from the so-called black box. 

• Flight 804 plane's smoke detectors went off before crash
• GRAPHIC | How an airplane's flight recorder works

Questions remain over what happened to the doomed jet. Greek officials said the plane suddenly lurched left, then right before plummeting more than 11,000 metres, but Egyptian authorities have disputed this account and said terrorism is a more likely explanation than equipment failure. So far, no hard evidence of terrorism has emerged, and no group claimed responsibility.

Since the crash, small pieces of the wreckage and human remains have been recovered, but the bulk of the plane and bodies of passengers are believed to be deep under the sea.

The crash killed 66 people. Canadians Marwa Hamdy, 42, of Saskatoon, and Medhat Tanious, 54, of Toronto, were onboard when the jet disappeared from radar on May 19 en route from Paris to Cairo.

• Crash victims mourned as Egypt's tourism industry prepares to take another hit