earch teams on Sunday retrieved one of two black box flight recorders of an Air France plane that crashed into the Atlantic while on a Rio-Paris flight in 2009, French investigators said.
"The investigation team located and identified the memory unit from the Flight Data Recorder (FDR) at 10 h UTC this morning," said France's Bureau of Investigation and Analysis (BEA), which has been tasked with probing the disaster which killed 228 people.
In a statement, the agency added that the device was "in good physical condition" after it was "raised and lifted by the Remora 6000 ROV (robot submarine) on board the ship Ile de Sein at 16h40 UTC".
"At this stage, the box seems to be in good physical condition. Our experts will tell us if there's hope to read the data," said BEA director Jean-Paul Troadec.
"If the data can be used it will allow the enquiry to make headway because the FDR (flight data recorder) records the altitude, speed, and the various positions of the rudder," Troadec added.
