Flight 477: Black box opened and in perfect condition.
Mystery begins to unravel; technicians access recordings from plane that crashed into the sea.
Roberta Namour, correspondent for Brasil 247 in Paris - The black boxes have spoken. The Bureau of Investigation and Analysis (BEA) announced this morning the recovery of all data contained in the two black boxes of flight AF 477 Rio-Paris. They are in excellent condition. The accident claimed 228 victims on June 1, 2009. The analysis of the material should take several weeks, according to investigators. The BEA adds that a first report on the causes of the aircraft crash should be published in a few months, during the European summer. The conclusion, however, will only be released at the beginning of 2012.
The flight recorders, recovered on May 1st and 2nd, had been at a depth of 3.900 meters in the Atlantic Ocean for two years – a record in aviation history. Investigators feared that the storage conditions could compromise the quality of the data. But this appears not to have happened. The two black boxes, one containing flight parameters and the other the cockpit voice recording, hold crucial information to explain the catastrophe.
Regarding the recovery of the bodies, the decision to continue the operation should be made on Wednesday. If the DNA from the two corpses recovered from the seabed last week is inconclusive, the reassembly will be halted.