The flight data recorder from United Airlines Flight 93, which was hijacked and crashed in southeast Pennsylvania, was found Thursday at the crash site, the US Federal Bureau of Investigation said.
The FBI said one of the two "black boxes" was found at 4:20 pm (2020 GMT) in an 2.4-meter crater caused as the plane plummeted to the ground and exploded in a fireball, killing all 45 people aboard.
"The box was identified and pulled from the crater," FBI spokesman Bill Crowley told reporters.
The condition of the recorder -- which actually comes in an orange box -- was unknown, said the FBI, which is leading the inquiry at the remote site.
The Boeing 757, which had been en route from Newark, New Jersey, to San Francisco, was one of four planes hijacked Tuesday in the worst terrorist attack in US history, with thousands presumed dead in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania.
The FBI also confirmed Thursday that it and several other agencies executed a raid on the home of a Pittsburgh-area doctor late Wednesday evening.
Officials said they had obtained a search warrant for the home in Newcastle, Pennsylvania, about 80 kilometers north of Pittsburgh, after beginning an investigation into the man's background just after the Tuesday attacks.
The doctor -- who was not home at the time -- was questioned in New Mexico in connection with the attacks, where he had been working during the past week. He was not detained or arrested, the FBI added.
United Airlines Flight 29 had been heading west near Cleveland over the state of Ohio when it suddenly turned back in the direction it came from, eventually spiraling to the ground at 10:06 am (1406 GMT) just north of the town of Shanksville.
It was the only one of the four that apparently did not reach its intended target as the hijackers crashed the other planes into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon military headquarters in Washington – SHANKSVILLE, Pennsylvania (AFP)
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