CAIRO: Egyptian and foreign salvage experts are preparing to lift the data recorders of a ferry that sunk in the Red Sea earlier this month after locating the ship s wreck, the press reported Friday. The experts found the Al-Salam Boccaccio 98, which sunk on Feb. 3 with more than 1,400 people on board while traveling from Saudi Arabia to Egypt, on Thursday, the press said. The doomed ship was located 800 meters (2,600 feet) deep in the sea and 90 kilometers (56 miles) from the (Egyptian port of) Safaga, Egypt s leading daily, Al-Ahram, quoted Transport Minister Mohammed Mansour as saying. He said that it took experts three days to pinpoint the exact location of the ship and that he expected them to begin retrieving the data recorders as early as Saturday. International regulations require passenger ships and other ships of 3,000 gross tonnage and upwards to carry data recorders to assist in accident investigations. The devices, which resemble black boxes fitted on aircrafts, enable accident investigators to review procedures and instructions in the moments before an incident and help to identify the cause of any accident. On Thursday, the attorney general s office said that salvage teams had recovered 409 bodies from the sea so far, adding that 300 have been identified and handed over to relatives. Seventy-seven unidentified bodies out of the total were buried in mass graves and officials have not yet determined the status of 32 others, it said. More than 1,000 passengers and crew are still said to be missing or dead. AFP
Sunken ferry's data recorders to be raised
