French navy can't reach box
2004-01-06 20:54
Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt - The French navy does not have the right equipment at the crash site to recover the flight recorders from the depths of the Red Sea where a plane crashed last week, a French admiral said on Tuesday.
"The approximate depth" where the wreckage is believed to have settled is "such that, with the means in the area, it is not possible to recover it and act immediately," Admiral Jacques Mazar told a press conference.
French officials have already said that a robot with a mechanical claw that is being used can deploy only to depths of 400m, while a signal probably emitted from the black box is in an area much deeper than that.
The Boeing 737 charter plane crashed shortly after take-off from Egypt's Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh on Saturday, killing all 148 aboard, most of them French tourists.
- AFP