The flight data recorder from the American Airlines Airbus 300 that crashed in New York on Monday has been recovered. But officials from the US National Transportation Safety Board say it is damaged, delaying its analysis.
An NTSB spokesman said the memory was still intact but that the interface for retrieving it was broken. The recorder will now be sent to its manufacturer for decoding. The information it provides is thought likely to be critical to the investigation, which is still considering a range of possibilities.
The plane鈥檚 second black box, the cockpit voice recorder, was recovered intact. Its contents suggest there was no explosion aboard the plane, but rattling noises point to structural disintegration shortly after take-off. The crash killed all 260 people on board and as many as nine more on the ground.
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Investigators are considering engine malfunction or loosening of the vertical stabiliser in the plane鈥檚 tail, as well as the possibility that air turbulence caused by another jet could have played role in the tragedy. Initial investigation has found no evidence that birds flew into an engine.
Loss of control
Parts of the plane, including both engines, its tail and pieces of one wing, are thought to have fallen from the sky before the fuselage crashed into a residential area of Rockaway peninsula in Queens, New York City.
The voice recording lasts for just 144 seconds after take-off from John F Kennedy airport. After 107 seconds a rattling noise is audible and the crew are heard to comment about losing control.
Investigators said that the fact that both engines appear to have fallen from the plane in mid air signifies an unusual and massive structural failure.
Wreckage distribution
鈥淭he distribution of the wreckage is unusual,鈥� said George Black of the NTSB.
鈥淚t indicates pieces were coming off the airplane very shortly after take-off,鈥� he said. 鈥淭o have pieces in the bay and the two engines not located with the fuselage indicates something went seriously wrong very quickly in the flight.鈥�
Experts from the NTSB are still examining the plane鈥檚 engines but said there is no initial evidence that they suffered mechanical failure. But investigators have not discounted the chance that the plane was somehow sabotaged before take-off.