SOFIA, June 24 (Xinhua) -- Bulgarian authorities on Thursday retrieved the black box of the MiG-29 fighter jet which crashed in the Black Sea during a military drill on June 9, the country's Defense Minister Georgi Panayotov said.
The black box was found at a depth of more than 70 meters, and later on Thursday it will be delivered to Graf Ignatievo Air Base, the permanent deployment site on Bulgaria's MiG-29 squadron, the minister said at a press conference.
"The report is that the outer shell of the box is broken, but we have reason to believe that the inner shell of the box, which actually contains the information, is not damaged," Panayotov said.
"This gives us hope that the information can be extracted today," he said.
"If the data in the black box is not damaged, it will be read here in Bulgaria," Panayotov said, adding that the data will be provided to the investigating authorities.
The aircraft lost radio communication and disappeared from radars at 00:45 local time on June 9 when performing a training task during the tactical live-fire exercise Shabla 21.
On June 10, after finding "biological material" which was sent for DNA examination, the Defense Ministry established that the pilot, 47-year-old Major Valentin Terziev, has died. Enditem