The black boxes from the Boeing which crashed in Rostov-on-Don are severely damaged, the Inter-State Aviation Committee (MAK) said on its website.
"The flight recorders we received have severe mechanical damage," reads the statement.
"Both recorders have substantial mechanical damage. No traces of fire were discovered. Nevertheless, the damaged boxes are making it necessary to carry out the work of opening, restoring and extracting memory modules from the protected storage units. Currently, such work is carried out at the MAK laboratory. The condition of the memory modules and of the information on the flight recorders will be clear before the end of the day," MAK deputy chairman Sergei Zaiko said.
A source in emergency services told Interfax earlier that the plane's flight recorders were in normal condition and decipherable.
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