French vessel containing black box probes arrives to EgyptAir search zone

The French company will conduct a deepwater search within the 5 kilometre search zone containing the two black boxes

CAIRO: A French vessel carrying specialist probes designed to detect black box pinger signals has arrived to the search area where an EgyptAir jet is believed to have crashed last week, sources on the investigation committee said on Friday.

A week after the Airbus A320 crashed with 66 people on board, including 30 Egyptians and 15 from France, investigators have no clear picture of its final moments.



Alseamar, a subsidiary of French industrial group Alcen, is providing equipment that includes three of its Detector-6000 systems, designed to pick up black-box pinger signals over long distances up to five km (three miles), according to the company's website.

The French company will conduct a deepwater search in "four or five" areas within the 5 kilometre search zone believed to contain the two black boxes, with the possibility of expanding the search zone should no signal be detected, the source said.



The company has worked with Egyptian investigators before. In 2004, it joined the search for black boxes after a Boeing 737 belonging to Egypt’s Flash Air crashed in the Red Sea near Sharm al-Sheikh. The French BEA investigation agency was involved due to the large number of French tourists on board.

Alseamar used a specially adapted system of “intelligent buoys” connected to underwater acoustic listening devices in the search for the Flash Air jet, which was in 1,000 meters of water. It was not immediately clear whether the same system could be used in the much deeper Mediterranean waters where the EgyptAir wreckage crashed.



The black boxes are believed to be lying in up to 3,000 meters of water, on the edge of the range for hearing and locating signals emitted by the boxes.