The Egyptian investigative committee looking into the crash of EgyptAir flight MS804 has begun its inspection of the plane's two black boxes found in the Mediterranean Sea last week. Electrical tests are being conducted on the memory units of the two devices – the Cockpit Voice Recorder (CVR) and the Flight Data Recorder (FDR) – after which the data unloading process will start, the civil aviation ministry said on Sunday in a statement. The data extraction process can take several weeks, the ministry had earlier said. The plane, which was on its way from Paris to Cairo, crashed into the Mediterranean Sea on 19 May, killing all 66 people on board. The memory units were dried in an eight-hour process in preparation for the electrical tests, according to Sunday's statement. The memory units were removed from the recorders at the ministry's Central Department for Aircraft Investigation, with the drying process taking place at the Technical Research Centre of the Armed Forces "using modern, high-tech drying ovens." French and US government representatives, along with their expert consultants, are attending the inspection process. The US official joined the investigation committee as a representative from the country where the plane's engine was manufactured. The ministry statement said that the task of the John Lethbridge search vessel – which had located the black boxes on Thursday and Friday – was not over with the recovery of the data recorders. "[The vessel] is proceeding with it task of drawing a map of the debris distribution pattern at the bottom of the Mediterranean," the statement read. source: Ahram online
