French investigators have confirmed that the flight recorders from the crashed Air France Airbus A330-200s contain readable data.

The Bureau d'Enquetes et d'Analyses said it had retrieved "all of the data" from the flight-data recorder and the "whole recording" of the final two hours of flight from the cockpit-voice recorder.

"Following operations to open, extract, clean and dry the memory cards from the flight recorders, BEA safety investigators were able to download the data over the weekend," it says.

"All of this data will now be subjected to detailed in-depth analysis."

BEA says it expects the work to take several weeks but will publish another interim report into the 1 June 2009 accident "during the summer".

The flight-data recorder was retrieved from the wreck of flight AF447 on 1 May while the cockpit-voice recorder was similarly recovered on 3 May.

Source: Air Transport Intelligence news