A Flydubai jetliner's flight recorders were badly damaged when it crashed in Russia early Saturday, killing 55 passengers and seven crew, investigators told
Reuters as security personnel searched the wreckage with dogs.
Despite the damage, Russia's Interstate Aviation Committee told the news agency that work has begun to get information from the recorders. The Boeing 737-800 was part of the state-run Dubai-based budget carrier, sister to Emirates Airlines, according to
Agence France-Presse.
"The received recorders are badly damaged mechanically," the Interstate Aviation Committee said in a statement, adding that it could take a month to decode the information, noted Reuters. "Specialists ... have started the inspection, opening and removing the memory modules from their protective coverings for further work to restore the cable connections and prepare to copy the data."
The Russian news agency
TASS said the Flydubai jet crashed at 3:32 a.m., Moscow time, at an airport in Rostov-on-Don during its second landing attempt in strong winds and rain. TASS said investigators are examining possible pilot error, technical difficulties and bad weather as probable faults.
TASS said the data recorders will be taken to Moscow to be decrypted since Rostov-on-Don did not have the equipment to do so.
"It may be assumed that both data flight recorders of the crashed Boeing can be decrypted," Alexander Neradko, head of Russia's Federal Air Transport Agency, told TASS. "After visual inspection it can be assumed that both recorders will be subject to decoding. According to the results of decoding, taking into account the analysis of the structure of the aircraft and the cause (of the crash) will be found."
Flydubai's chief executive Ghaith Al Ghaith urged patience during the investigation, according to a
Flydubai statement on Sunday.
"We are aware that in the course of the past 24 hours there has been a great deal of speculation as to the cause of this tragedy," Ghaith said. "We share the desire to get answers as quickly as possible but at this stage we must not be drawn into speculation. We would ask that the investigating authorities are given the time and space they need to report definitively on the causes of the accident."
Last October, a Russian flight bound for St. Petersburg crashed after takeoff from Sharm el-Sheikh International Airport in El Salam, Egypt. The crash killed all 224 people on board and was blamed on terrorism, reported
The Guardian.
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