EgyptAir MS804 data recorders damaged; sent to France for repair

CAIRO, June 24 (UPI) -- Damaged flight recorders from EgyptAir Flight MS804 will be sent to France for repairs, a statement by Egyptian investigators said after they were unable to extract any data from the black boxes.

Analysts were unable to download any pertinent information from the flight data recorder or cockpit voice recorder of the plane, which crashed in May while traveling from Paris to Cairo with 66 people onboard.

The statement said the equipment will be sent next week to BEA, the French transportation safety board regarded as expert in analysis of aviation memory devices, to "carry out repair and removal of salt accumulations" from memory chips. They will then return to Egypt's Ministry of Civil Aviation for further scrutiny.

The plane was flying at 37,000 feet when it lost contact with air traffic controllers. The recorders can gather up to 25 hours of critical data regarding the plane's flight, as well as cockpit conversations, and offer the best clues regarding why the plane, an Airbus A320, crashed.

Some debris from the plane has been recovered from the Mediterranean Sea.