A French Navy ship picked up signals from deep under the Mediterranean believed to be emitting from the two black boxes of the EgyptAir plane that crashed into the sea mid May, the Egyptian Aviation Ministry said on Wednesday.

French survey vessel Laplace joined search operations for EgyptAir MS804's two black boxes on Tuesday. The ship is fitted with devices capable of detecting the locator signals given off by black boxes

The ministry, in a statement, said efforts are being intensified in the search area to pinpoint the exact place of the boxes in preparation for recovering them by Deep Ocean Search (DOS) ship, a ship with a robot capable of diving up to 3,000 meters to retrieve the black boxes. It will join the search this week.

EgyptAir Airbus A320 plane crashed into the Mediterranean with 66 people on board during a May 19 flight from Paris to Cairo after disappearing from radar screens.

The black boxes have enough battery power to emit signals for four or five weeks.

Source: MENA