New leads expected in March plane crash in Sweden’s Arctic
A retrieved sound recording may explain the cause of the Hercules plane crash that killed five Norwegians in March. The Swedish army has found the sound-recording device from the plane that will now be analysed in the UK.
Five crew members, all Norwegian citizens, died immediately when the plane hit Sweden’s tallest mountain, Kebenekaise, located in country’s Far North. An army batallion has now found a sound-recording device belonging to one of the plane’s two black boxes.
“We will now get the chance to hear and understand how the crew reasoned onboard,” says Agne Widholm, head of the investigation at the Accident Investigation Authority.
The second black box, which contains information about the plane’s bearings and motor settings, is still missing, but may turn up as the glacier by the site of the crash continues to melt.
“We can now see that the area nearest where the plane crashed into the mountain is where most of the material is. We will be searching there during the next two weeks,” Widholm adds, speaking to news agency TT.
Experts in the UK will now analyse the sound from the plane’s cockpit that may reveal the cause of the accident, which remains unclear.
Sweden’s Accident Investigation Authority had previously said it would send the black boxes, when found, to the UK for testing.
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