Storm delays plane search

STRONG WINDS and high seas were frustrating efforts to retrieve the two "black box" recorders from the bed of the Atlantic Ocean yesterday as investigators continued to puzzle over what could have knocked EgyptAir Flight 990 out of the sky last Sunday.

In the meantime, grieving relatives of the 217 people who died in the crash were taken from their hotel in Newport, Rhode Island, to nearby Quonset Point where wreckage parts are being taken. There they saw the few pieces of the plane, including wheels and small sections of fuselage.

Forecasters warned that calmer seas may not return to the crash area, about 60 miles south of Nantucket, until early tomorrow. As soon as conditions permit, the US Navy will resume its probe of the seabed with its so-called "deep-drone" robot submarine.

The drone, which sees the ocean floor with its camera and sends pictures to a control room aboard the USS Grapple, came tantalisingly close to the boxes on Friday. Officials said that the "pinging" noise emitted by the boxes became so loud at one point, controllers had to take their headphones away from their ears.

So far, however, the boxes have not yet been physically sighted. Once it is returned to the water, the drone will resume digging for them through silt and pieces of wreckage from the aircraft with its remote-controlled arm and claw.

Navy Captain Bert Marsh said he was confident that the boxes would be found. If the boxes are intact, the data they yield could take investigators much closer to explaining the riddle of the crash.

"They know they're there, it's just a matter of time until they are able to dig one or both of them up," Capt Marsh said.

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