PERPIGNAN, France – The chief of Air New Zealand visited the beach where an Airbus A320 passenger jet crashed, paying silent respects Sunday to the seven people aboard.
CEO Rob Fyfe and the wife of one of the victims arrived a day after prosecutors said that divers had recovered one of two flight recorders aboard the plane that plunged into the Mediterranean on a maintenance flight while approaching Perpignan's airport.
Fyfe walked across the Canet beach and stared out at the crash site in the Mediterranean Sea.
The black box that recorded cockpit noises has been recovered. The recorder containing flight data information has not.
Two bodies were recovered hours after the Thursday crash, and debris from the plane has been found, officials have said.
The plane had been leased to charter airline XL Airways Germany and was on the maintenance flight before being returned to Air New Zealand.
The crew included two German pilots, and a pilot and three engineers from Air New Zealand, plus an aircraft inspector from the New Zealand Civil Aviation Authority.
