Russian crash investigators find voice recorder

In this photo provided by Russian Emergency Situations Ministry, fire fighters and rescuers work at the crash site of a Russian passenger airliner near Kazan, the capital of the Tatarstan republic, about 720 kilometers east of Moscow, Sunday, Nov. 17, 2013. A Russian passenger airliner crashed Sunday night while trying to land at the airport in the city of Kazan, killing all people aboard, officials said. The Boeing 737 belonging to Tatarstan Airlines crashed an hour after taking off from Moscow. There were no immediate indications of the cause. AP

MOSCOW, Russia—Russian crash investigators say they have found a tape of cockpit conversations from a Boeing 737 that slammed into the ground in a nosedive crash, killing all 50 people on board.

The voice-recording tape, missing when its container was found earlier, was located by search teams Wednesday.

Systems data retrieved from another on-board black box allowed the Moscow-based Interstate Aviation Committee to conclude that the crew lost speed in a steep climb, then overcompensated and sent the plane into a near-vertical dive. It said all the plane’s systems were working normally until the moment it hit the ground and exploded in a giant fireball.

The Tatarstan Airlines plane was flying from Moscow to the central city of Kazan, 720 kilometers to the east.