Two Men Uncover Mysterious Fate of Flight 980
17. Treasure Found
The device was bright orange and crushed almost beyond recognition, with an outer shell made of aluminum. The Black Box was in several pieces when they found it. It was split into six large metal segments and contained several damaged pieces of magnetic tape. A wiring harness on one end was labeled CKPT VO RCDR. Unfortunately, the box is unlikely to contain much, if any, recoverable data from the crash 31 years prior.
18. Over the years
In all, at least five expeditions have climbed Illimani in search of the wreckage over the past 31 years. Besides the few bits of mummified remains and the black box found by Dan and Isaac, none of the previous expeditions have found any bodies or flight recorders. To this day nobody has been able to establish what brought down the plane other than "the plane was destroyed because it ran into a mountain." But there are some persisting theories as to what really happened…