The Cockpit Voice Recorder (CVR)
The Cockpit Voice Recorder (CVR), one of two flight recorders from the Rio-Paris Air France flight which crashed in 2009, is carrying to be displayed for the media before a news conference at the BEA headquarters in Le Bourget, northern Paris, May 12, 2011. REUTERS

Investigators into the crash of Air France flight 447 have said that the downed aircraft's "black box" is intact, despite spending the best part of two years at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean.

Flight 447 crashed on 1 June 2009, resulting in the deaths of all 228 people on board. As of yet no explanation for the crash has been discovered. The flight had been going from Rio de Janeiro to Paris.

An initial search after the crash led to the discovery of parts of the wrecked plane and a number of bodies, however it was only recently that the crash site and the "black box" were found.

While it will take some time to analyse, investigators have said that they have successfully extracted and cleaned voice and data recorders.

An interim report into the causes of the crash is expected to be published in the summer, while the full report will not be finished until 2012.

In a statement, the Bureau of Enquiry and Analysis for Civil Aviation Safety, said, "Following operations to open, extract, clean and dry the memory cards from the flight recorders, BEA safety investigators were able to download the data over the weekend.

"These downloads gathered all of the data from the flight data recorder, as well as the whole recording of the last two hours of the flight from the cockpit voice recorder."