Macedonia crash mystery

Instrument and cockpit voice recordings from the plane in which Macedonian President Boris Trajkovski died are being examined to determine the cause of the mystery crash, officials said yesterday.

The accident in the mountains of southern Bosnia on Thursday was at first attributed to aircraft failure, but Macedonian officials said there were signs other factors were involved. They gave no further details.

"They've found two black boxes and those black boxes were taken away by the (Bosnian) civil aviation authority and the Macedonian civil aviation authority," said Captain Dave Sullivan, spokesman for the Nato-led Stabilisation Force (SFOR).

Bosnian deputy state prosecutor Medzida Kreso said SFOR was in charge of air traffic control in the Mostar zone.

A recording of the last conversation between the pilot and Mostar control tower "will be carefully examined", she added.

Black hearses drove into a bleak former battlefield to collect the bodies of Mr Trajkovski and eight other Macedonians killed in a mystery air crash. One body was found the wreck, one in a tree and others were charred inside the fuselage.