Egypt hired two foreign companies on Wednesday to help locate the black boxes of Egyptair flight MS804, which crashed into the Mediterranean Sea last week with 66 people on board, dpa reported. Egyptian investigators tasked the firms - one French and one Italian - with locating the electronic recording devices, presumed to be sitting on the seabed at a depth of 3 kilometres, Egyptair chairman Safwat Muslim told reporters in Cairo. The flight from Paris to Cairo plunged into the Mediterranean about 290 kilometres off the Egyptian coast early Thursday. No distress call was received and Egyptian authorities have said the plane did not make contact with Egyptian air traffic control after passing out of Greek airspace shortly before crashing. The flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder - known as the black boxes - will provide crucial information about the Airbus A320's final moments.
