French and Italian firms to help search for EgyptAir black boxes

EgyptAir will contract two foreign firms, one French and one Italian, to help search for the black boxes of its plane that crashed in the Mediterranean, the airline’s chairman said.

EgyptAir flight 804 crashed last Thursday with 66 people on board including 30 Egyptians and 15 from France in an area of the Mediterranean where the waters can be 3,000m deep.

“We have contracted a French and an Italian company to conduct deep sea searching in the Mediterranean, 3,000m deep,” Egypt-Air chairman Safwat Moslem told a news conference.