The flight recorders from a passenger jet which crashed in southern Russia killing all 62 people on board are badly damaged and could take up to a month to decode, Russia’s airline regulator said in a statement on Sunday (March 20).

The Boeing 737-800 aircraft, operated by Dubai-based budget carrier FlyDubai, crashed on its second attempt to land at Russia’s Rostov-on-Don airport in the early hours of Saturday morning (March 19). Most of those on board were Russian.

“The received recorders are badly damaged mechanically,” Russia’s Interstate Aviation Committee (IAC) said in a statement on its website, alongside a photo of a crumpled recorder.

“Specialists ... have started the inspection, opening and removing the memory modules from their protective coverings for further work to restore the cable connections and prepare to copy the data,” the IAC said.

RIA news agency cited an IAC official as saying it could take one month to decode information from the recorders.

Under international aviation rules, the investigation will be led by Russia’s air safety investigation agency with representatives from the United States, where the jet was made, and the United Arab Emirates, where the airline is based.

FlyDubai said on Sunday it had not cancelled or delayed any flights because of the crash.

The airline said in a statement it was organizing hardship payments to families of the victims amounting to $20,000 per passenger, in accordance with its conditions of carriage.

Security services in the Middle East and Russia are on heightened alert for militant threats to aviation following the Islamic State (ISIS) claim of responsibility for downing a Russian passenger plane over Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula in late October, Reuters reported.

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