Egyptian authorities hired a deep ocean survey and recovery company to join the hunt for wreckage of the EgyptAir jet that went down over the eastern Mediterranean last week, as new satellite evidence emerged to help narrow down the likely crash site.
Egypt’s civil aviation ministry signed the agreement on Friday with Deep Ocean Search Ltd., according to a statement from France’s air accidents bureau, BEA, which is part of the investigation.
A DOS vessel will join the Laplace, a French Navy ship set to arrive in the area over the weekend and deploy specialist technology to pick up telltale “pings” from the Airbus Group SE A320’s black-box flight recorders, Bloomberg reported.
Experts remain unclear about what destroyed the Airbus. While human remains so far recovered indicate a catastrophic incident such as a bomb, bodies can also be ripped apart when an aircraft disintegrates following a structural failure, or hits the ground or sea at high velocity.
