We started out this trip with the goal of finding the black box — the cockpit voice recorder and the flight data recorder — of Eastern Airlines Flight 980. We also had a goal to live a life of adventure, to challenge ourselves physically and mentally, and to come back with a story.
We found what we believe to be the flight recorders.

The first piece of international orange metal we found, but weren’t yet sure if it was from one of the recorders.
On day 1 searching the lower debris field near Mina Mesa Khala, we found two pieces of metal. On both, one side was “international orange” and the other was what we’ve been calling Boeing green because it seems to be on every piece out here and isn’t an Eastern Airlines color.
Also, both pieces were significantly mangled, twisted, and scratched presumably from three forces: the Boeing 727 flying into the mountain at 500 mph, the metal fell 4000 feet down from the impact site to the base of Illimani, and the natural grinding of ice and boulders that make up this living mountain.

Marking the location of the second piece of one of the recorders found.
After finding these pieces on the first day, we suspected they might be part of the recorders but didn’t have total confidence. The metal was so mangled that it didn’t look strong enough to be part of the black box, so we continued thinking of other parts of the plane it might be and we continued searching.
On day 2, we found three more pieces of metal that matched the first two — orange on one side, green on the other, and torn up clearly due to a significant amount of force exerted on it.
Still, we’re not sure. Maybe the boxes didn’t fall down at all. We didn’t find pieces that we were 100% confident were the tail, where we knew the recorders should be. Maybe the tail is at the impact site at 19,600 feet? Maybe we’ll have to dig through feet of ice in a few days to find out?
On day 3, we committed ourselves to searching the huge area of glacier at the lower debris field. Crampons on, risk assessment aside, we dove in, Isaac almost literally. Midday he piped up on the radio, telling us he had gone spelunking in the crevasses. If the recorders were down here, we wanted to cover the most area possible. And the more we searched, the more Isaac grew obsessed with finding the recorders.

Another piece of one of the recorders found. The valves on the outside drove a lot of conversation until we learned that some model of recorders in 1985 had one way valves on them. This didn’t seem to be a universal feature in our research.

Large piece of wing frame (we think) that took about an hour to dig out.
On the third afternoon, we came across a large piece of internal framing from the wing that was partially buried and sticking straight up. We had wondered two days earlier whether the other end was attached to a cabin. Though the black box was surely not at the bottom, we spent the next hour digging and digging to uncover the entire piece. No cabin, no black box, but the satisfaction of starting and finishing something with clarity temporarily replaced our frustrating at our inability to confirm whether we had or had not found the recorders.

Robert and Jose with a piece of one of the recorders they found.
The sun had descended below the mountain top so we were in shade, yet still searched for another hour or more. Finally, with the day wrapped and the temperature dropping down towards 15 degrees, we called it a day and began a conversation about whether or not we should return for another hour or two of searching the next day.
After wed given up for the evening, Isaac did something he’d done hundreds of times over the previous three days, turning over pieces of metal to check their color.
Only this piece he turned over was orange, just like the previous five pieces, and it had cables sticking out of it. On a plastic wrapping around the cables was the writing “CKPT VO RCDR”.
Sweet confirmation.
This piece confirmed that we’d found what we were looking for, and that the previous five were also part of the recorders. This discovery immediately changed our spirits. We’d accidentally done the thing we tried to do.
Over the next two days we had much conversation about how much metal we had and if they were the right pieces, settling on confirmation that we had the cockpit voice recorder and enough metal to at least partially confirm the flight data recorder.
But mostly what we found are just scraps of metal, pieces of nonfunctional orange casing. These parts do nothing to illuminate the final moments of a crash in order to answer why.

See the roll of tape? This is how it looked when I found it.
On day one I’d also found a roll of magnetic tape, maybe from a flight recorder, but also maybe home videos from someone’s luggage. We’ll work with some experts once we get home to determine if any information can be pulled from the tape. We are hopeful, but there may be little readable on the deteriorated roll. Fingers crossed.

All six pieces of the flight recorders, plus a roll and many fragments of tape we put into a ziploc. We are hopeful this tape will still hold some information that may be useful.
There is more work to do, but we’re happy to say we’ve done what we came to do: located and recovered the recorders of Flight 980. Stay tuned for future developments as we learn more. We still hope that this trip might provide some answers. Thank you so much for the support and encouragement throughout our preparation and during this trip. It truly has been motivating.