Breaking News: Damaged flight recorders from the EgyptAir aircraft that crashed last month will be sent to France for repairs, Egyptian investigators say

Egypt officials were unable to extract any data from either of the two recorders and said that they will be sent to France for further testing.  It appears the black boxes were severely damaged by saltwater. EgyptAir said in a statement Thursday that the French will “carry out repair and removal of salt accumulations.”

There are two types of recorders, a flight data recorder and a cockpit voice recorder.  The flight data recorder gathers technical data from the airplane‘s sensors such as air speed, altitude, engine performance and wing positions. The cockpit voice recorder captures sounds from the flight deck, including flight crew conversation, alarms and background noise.  Both recorders help investigators understand what the airplane and flight crew were doing.

The Airbus A320 was en route from Paris to Cairo when it vanished from radar in the eastern Mediterranean on 19 May.  66 people were aboard when the plane went down.

Flight path of Egypt 804 Source: CBC
Flight path of Egypt 804
Source: CBC

Here is what we do know (source BBC.com):