EgyptAir crash: Human remains recovered at site, investigators say

A search vessel contracted by the Egyptian government has recovered all the human remains that had been mapped at the crash site of an EgyptAir flight that went down in May, the Egyptian Accident Investigation Committee said Sunday.

The John Lethbridge, which, according to Reuters, is owned by the Mauritius-based Deep Ocean Search, headed to Alexandria to deliver the remains to forensic doctors and prosecutors. DNA analysis will be performed in Cairo, the committee said in a statement.

The vessel will return to the crash site to perform additional scans for any remains that have yet to be discovered.

The flight from Paris to Cairo crashed into the Mediterranean on May 19, killing all 66 people on board. The pilots made no distress call, and no militant group has claimed to have brought the aircraft down.

On Saturday, investigators said they would be able to access the cockpit voice recordings of the flight despite damage to the black box.

"None of the memory chips of the electronic board were damaged," the Egyptians participating in the examination of the device in France said in a statement, adding that only some connecting components had to be replaced.

"Test results were satisfactory as (they) enabled the reading of the recorders of the CVR memory unit," they added. The Egyptians now plan to bring the recorder to Cairo for further analysis.

The flight data recorder shows that there was smoke in the lavatory and onboard equipment, and investigators say they have found heat damage on parts of the wreckage recovered from the Mediterranean Sea floor last month.

The bulk of the wreckage is believed to be at a depth of about 9,800 feet.

French authorities opened a manslaughter inquiry on Monday, but said there is no evidence so far to link the crash to terrorism.

EgyptAir Flight 804 disappeared from radar at about 2:45 a.m. local time between the Greek island of Crete and the Egyptian coast.

Radar data showed the aircraft had been cruising normally in clear skies before it turned 90 degrees left, then spun 360 degrees to the right as it plummeted from 38,000 feet to 15,000 feet. It disappeared when it was at an altitude of about 10,000 feet.