Black box flight recorders found as battered wreckage is pulled from site where Russian Defence Ministry plane crash killed 92
Rescue workers continue to scour Black Sea where Tu-154 military aircraft came down in hunt for bodies and clues
RESCUE workers have found a black box flight recorder from the Russian military plane that crashed into the Black Sea over the weekend, the Defence Ministry has said.
All 92 people aboard the Tu-154 plane are believed to have died Sunday morning when it crashed just two minutes after taking off from Sochi in southern Russia.
The 84 passengers included dozens of singers from Russia's world-famous military choir who were travelling to a Russian base in Syria to perform at a New Year's concert.
Russia’s Defence Ministry revealed one of the flight recorders was found early this morning around a mile from the shore.
State television showed footage of rescue workers on an inflatable boat carrying a container with a bright orange object submerged in water.
The ministry later said the black box was flown to a lab near the capital, Moscow, and seemed to be undamaged at first examination.
It was not immediately clear when the data from the black box would be available.
But decorated Russian test pilot Magomed Tolboyev told the Interfax news agency that investigators could retrieve information from it later the same day.
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Mourners have continued to bring flowers to the pier in Sochi as the rescue effort went on just off the coast.
Some 3,500 people, 45 ships and 192 divers have been sweeping the vast crash site, searching for the bodies of victims as well as pieces of debris that could provide clues for investigators.
Rescue teams so far have recovered 12 bodies and numerous body fragments, which have been flown to Moscow to be identified.
Divers also found fragments of the aircraft’s fuselage and engine as well as various mechanical parts overnight, the Defence Ministry added.
Officials still have not yet announced the cause of the crash – but they have been keen to quash speculation it was terror-related.
But some aviation experts have pointed to the crew's failure to communicate any technical problem and the large area over which debris was scattered as evidence of a possible explosion on board.
Russia's main intelligence and counter-terror agency, the FSB, said it has found "no indications or facts pointing at the possibility of a terror attack or an act of sabotage on board the plane".
The agency added that investigators were looking into bad fuel, pilot error, foreign objects stuck in the engines and equipment failure as possible causes.
The Tu-154 is a Soviet-built three-engine aircraft designed in the late 1960s.
The plane that crashed Sunday was built in 1983, and underwent factory check-ups and maintenance in 2014 as well as earlier this year.
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