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Voice recorder recovered from crashed UPS plane in Dubai

DUBAI— Investigators have recovered the cockpit voice recorder from a United Parcel Service Boeing 747 that crashed in a military base outside Dubai, killing both crew members.

“The investigation team recovered the cockpit voice recorder (CVR) approximately 6 hours after the accident” on Friday, said a statement by the General Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA) of the United Arab Emirates.

“The onsite GCAA investigation team is continuing the recovery effort to locate the digital flight data recorder (DFDR),” the statement said.

The pilot and co-pilot, the only crew members aboard, were killed in the crash, official WAM news reported on Friday. Local media reported on Sunday that the two were Americans. There were no casualties on the ground.

The GCAA statement said that a US National Transportation Safety Board team would arrive in the UAE on Sunday to assist with the investigation.

About 22 minutes after the aircraft departed Dubai for Cologne, Germany, on Friday, “information was received from Bahrain that the aircraft was returning to Dubai Airport with smoke in the cockpit,” the statement said.

The plane was “unable to maintain altitude and requested the airport for landing,” it added.

The aircraft’s approach was high and it flew over the airport and made a right turn. Radar contact was lost around 7:42 PM (1542 GMT), less than an hour after the plane had departed, the GCAA said.

The crash investigation is ongoing, it said.

In October 2009 a Sudanese Boeing 707 cargo plane owned by Azza Transport in Khartoum crashed outside Dubai, near Sharjah, killing all six Sudanese crew members aboard.