Black boxes from Crossair crash intact

The flight recorders from the Crossair plane which crashed last Monday near Zurich are intact, according to the Swiss air investigation bureau. Officials said the black box in the cockpit had recorded the pilots' conversation.

The flight recorders from the Crossair plane which crashed last Monday near Zurich are intact, according to the Swiss air investigation bureau.

Officials said the black box in the cockpit had recorded the pilots’ conversation just before the plane went down, killing all 10 people on board.

The Swiss air investigation bureau revealed that the flight data and cockpit voice recorders were not damaged, after conducting preliminary tests. There were concerns that the data may not have withstood the intense heat generated on impact.

Investigators say they now have a good chance of understanding what occurred in the crucial minutes before the plane went down. Results are not expected until Friday at the earliest.

The plane, a Saab 340, crashed less than two minutes after taking-off for Dresden, Germany. It veered unexpectedly off-course and broke off all radio contact. The crash was the worst in Crossair’s 20-year history.

Meanwhile, a survey by the Sunday newspaper, Sonntags Blick, shows that 12 per cent of Swiss people are less confident in the nation’s airlines, following the Crossair crash, and the Swissair disaster off Nova Scotia in 1998, in which 229 people died.

But the Sonntags Blick found that 81 per cent of Swiss are not concerned about the safety of their airlines. Almost 40 per cent of respondents said they have a fear of flying in general.

From staff and wire reports