U.S. State Department(MOSCOW) — The Russian defense ministry announced the flight recorder from the Russian plane that crashed into the Black Sea on Sunday was found early Tuesday morning about a mile away from shore. The “black box” will be flown immediately to Moscow, though it’s unclear if there is damage.
Russian state television showed footage of rescue workers carrying a bright orange object submerged in water. Divers found fragments of the fuselage and other parts of the engine as 3,500 people scoured the crash site for bodies and debris.
There were 92 people believed to have been killed from the Russian military’s Tu-154 plane crash. It crashed two minutes after takeoff from Sochi.
Most of the passengers were singers from the famous Russian military choir and were on their way to Syria to perform at a New Year’s concert.
The FSB, Russia’s counter-terrorism agency, found “no indications or facts pointing at the possibility of a terror attack or an act of sabotage on board the plane.” The agency is also looking into bad fuel, pilot error, foreign objects stuck in the engine, and equipment failure.
Officials have not announced a clear cause of the crash. Some aviation experts have noted the crew’s failure to communicate any technical problem and the large area over which fragments of the plane were scattered point to a possible explosion on board.
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