The NTSB released their findings today on the materials we recovered on Mt. Illimani and delivered to the NTSB last month. Needless to say, we’re disappointed.

According to the NTSB, what we found were the orange outer shells of the black boxes — the CVR and FDR — but the spool of tape we recovered is from Bill Cosby’s 1984 TV show, “I Spy” dubbed in Spanish. This tape would have been kept in the galley and so this, along with the outer pieces of the box, suggest we were likely close to the actual magnetic tape we were looking for.

TV.com summarizes this episode of “I Spy” as follows:

Sunny California suburbia isn’t as safe as it seems to be when Scotty and another Department agent pose as a couple to route out a terrorist cell determined to bring down a major power grid in the area. The action grows especially hectic when Scotty must eliminate his own partner Kelly to get in good with the bad guys.

Who’s next to go up Illimani to recover the tape? Let us know in the comments if you’re going and we’d be more than willing to help with planning. Turns out this mystery is still very much from solved. What this tragedy really deserves is a formal, resourced, governmental investigation. We’ve proved that “inaccessible terrain” is a false and unacceptable reason for failing to close this investigation.

While we’re disappointed with this outcome, we’re happy to have shed light on tragedy in a way that hopefully drives a positive outcome, if not today, then this year, or next year, or sometime soon. We’re also happy to have proved incorrect the idea that this material is somehow inaccessible today. We’re heartened by the words of one family member’s reaction to today’s news.

“Seeing the wreckage has given me some peace. It feels like my Dad didn’t just disappear.”

Here’s the press release in full:

​WASHINGTON (Feb. 7, 2017) — National Transportation Safety Board investigators determined materials received Jan. 4, 2017, do not contain any data from Eastern Airlines Flight 980’s flight data recorder or cockpit voice recorder and do not provide any additional information relevant to the investigation of the Jan. 1, 1985, crash. Two U.S. citizens recovered the materials from the Flight 980 crash site on Mount Illimani, Bolivia, and contacted Bolivian authorities seeking to have the materials examined. The General Directorate of Civil Aviation of Bolivia (Unidad AIG) requested the NTSB receive and examine the materials. The materials were examined in the NTSB’s recorder laboratory at its headquarters. The NTSB assisted Unidad AIG under the protocols in the International Civil Aviation Organization Annex 13.

(In this photo, taken Jan. 10, 2016, in the NTSB’s recorder laboratory, Washington, are the materials examined by the NTSB at the request of Bolivia’s Unidad AIG. The materials were recovered from the Eastern Airlines Flight 980 crash site. NTSB Photo)