Black box of crashed Russian plane Tu-154 found in Black Sea

The search crew has reportedly found one of the flight recorders, otherwise known as the black boxes, of the crashed Russian Tu-154 plane during their hunt in the Black Sea. The condition of the recorder is still unknown.

So far, this is the first finding in the ongoing search and it is believed there were two more recorders on the doomed airplane.

"During search operations, one of the black boxes was found under the aircraft's cabin. It will be taken out of the water soon," a military source was quoted as saying by TASS. "Two other two boxes were in the tail section of the aircraft. They have not been found."

The Russian defence ministry-operated plane was carrying 92 people, 84 passengers and eight crew members, from the resort town of Sochi to Syria's Latakia when it plunged into the Black Sea. The incident has triggered a massive search involving more than 3,500 personnel as they attempt to recover the bodies of the victims and crucial parts of the flight.

Though the exact cause of the incident is yet to be ascertained by the investigators, either pilot error or a technical glitch is strongly suspected to be the reason behind the accident. Search crews have been combing the rough seas, located at a distance of about 2kms from Sochi.

"One of the key versions of the crash at the moment is the penetration of foreign objects in the engine," the source added. Four small pieces of fuselage have also been recovered as yet. More than a dozen dead bodies and body parts of few other victims have been collected from the crash site while the efforts are still continuing.