PORT HUENEME, Calif. — A cockpit voice recorder salvaged from the ocean is in good condition and may help explain how the Alaska Airlines pilots responded to a tail control malfunction before the jet's horrifying "corkscrewing" plunge, authorities said Thursday.
The pinger for the second "black box" — the flight data recorder — was located during the night but was no longer attached to the device, Navy Capt. Terry Labrecque said Thursday. Investigators believe they will still find it.
Searchers recovered the cockpit voice recorder just before sundown Wednesday. The device was found in 700 feet of water by a remote-controlled sub Scorpio.
"As luck would have it, almost literally true, as soon as they got down to the bottom they found the first box," Labrecque said.
The recorder was shipped to Washington for analysis. Investigators hope it will provide clues to what happened in the final moments of the flight, including details about the jet's horizontal stabilizer. The key tail control was described as jammed by the pilots a few minutes before the MD-83 crashed.
"The recorder has been described to me as being in good condition. Of course until we get it to our headquarters, open the recorder, find out the condition of the tape inside and provide an initial readout, we won't know for sure," National Transportation Safety Board Chairman James Hall said Thursday on ABC's "Good Morning America."
"But early indications are we ought to have a good recording, which will be extremely important to the investigation," he said.
The NTSB has also begun analyzing a recording of a radio call from Flight 261's pilots to a Seattle maintenance crew about the stabilizer problem minutes before the crash.
Investigators said witnesses saw no signs of fire or smoke when the jet hit the water in one piece Monday, killing all 88 aboard.
As the plane passed over Anacapa Island, just off the coast, a witness heard several popping sounds and watched the jet turn and hit the water, NTSB member John Hammerschmidt said Wednesday.
"The aircraft was twisting, flying erratically, nose rocking," he said. He also said other pilots nearby described the plane as "tumbling, spinning, nose-down, continuous roll, corkscrewing and inverted."
The pinger for the flight data recorder, which records information about the plane's mechanical operation — the size of two film cartridges — was found near the cockpit voice recorder, Labrecque said.
Ships with side-scan sonar equipment that can make detailed maps of debris on the ocean floor began searching the crash site Thursday, and two other remote-control submersibles like Scorpio were en route.
The wreckage is well below the 300-foot safety limit for divers — and most of the bodies are believed pinned in the debris on the bottom of the ocean. Searchers have recovered the remains of only four passengers.
Investigators expected choppier waters as a light storm moved toward Southern California Thursday. The beaches were mostly clear of debris, but rough seas could begin to wash ashore more remnants of the craft.