EgyptAir plane's voice recorder found

The cockpit voice recorder from the EgyptAir plane that crashed last month has been found in the Mediterranean, Egyptian investigators say.

The black box was damaged and had been pulled out of the water in several stages, they said.

A search vessel with an underwater robot has been scouring the crash site and has sent back images of wreckage.

Flight MS804 from Paris to Cairo crashed on 19 May, killing all 66 people on board. 

It is not yet clear what caused the aircraft to go down. 

In a statement, investigators said: "The vessel's equipment was able to salvage the part [of the recorder] that contains the memory unit, which is considered the most important part of the recording device." 

The recorder will now be taken to the Egyptian city of Alexandria to be studied.

The plane's manufacturer, Airbus, previously said that finding the black boxes was crucial to understanding what happened when radar lost track of MS804.

Electronic messages sent by the plane revealed that smoke detectors went off in the toilet and the aircraft's electrics, minutes before the radar signal was lost.

According to Greek investigators, the plane turned 90 degrees left and then 360 degrees to the right, dropping from 11,300m (37,000ft) to 4,600m (15,000ft) and then 3,000m (10,000ft) before it was lost from radar.

A terror attack has not been ruled out but no extremist group has claimed to have downed the plane.

Analysts say human or technical error is also a possibility.

The crew on board do not appear to have sent a distress call.

The cockpit voice recorder should allow investigators to hear what the pilot and co-pilot were saying to each other, plus any alarms in the background.

If the flight data recorder is recovered, it should show what the plane's computers were recording at the time.

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What do we know so far?

• EgyptAir Flight MS804 vanished over the eastern Mediterranean early on Thursday 19 May with 66 passengers and crew on board
• Some surface debris was found 290km (180 miles) north of the Egyptian city of Alexandria
• Signals from the plane indicated that smoke was detected in the toilet and in the avionics area below the cockpit
• Search area is one of the deepest parts of the Mediterranean - more than 3,000 metres (10,000ft) deep in places