Germanwings Flight 9525’s black box, which was located by French search crew on Tuesday, is badly damaged but can be used to derive information to help determine the cause of the crash, a senior French official announced Wednesday.
“The black box is damaged and must be reconstituted in the coming hours in order to be useable,” French Interior Minister Cazeneuve told RTL radio. He further stated that authorities are looking into all possible angles to help explain the crash.
However, he also said that it was highly unlikely that terrorists were involved in the crash.
Officials reportedly said that a crucial two-minute span when the pilots lost radio contact would be key to understanding why the plane went down. All 150 people on board are feared dead after the plane crashed in a remote, snowy region of the French Alps that has been virtually uninhabited for over 100 years.
Authorities continue to work to retrieve information from the cockpit voice recorder that holds all conversations between the pilots and air traffic controllers, as well as other sounds from the plane’s cockpit, which will aid them in reconstructing the last minutes of AU9525’s flight.