A US Navy salvage team using a remote controlled robot submarine located the flight data recorder at about 0500 local time (1000 GMT).

US Navy Rear Admiral William Sutton said: "By about 0540 (1040 GMT) ... they had retrieved it from the ocean floor."

The BBC's Paul Reynolds reports from Washington

The box, which could hold the key to the disaster, is expected to be flown to the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) laboratory in Washington as soon as possible for analysis.

NTSB chairman Jim Hall said the box had been damaged at one end. "We will not know the extent of the damage or what impact, if any, (it will have) on information contained in the recorder until it reaches Washington DC," he said.

Investigators deployed a new 3,600kg robot named Magnum on Monday to help with the underwater search. But Tuesday's recovery was completed by the much smaller Deep Drone vehicle, operating from the USS Grapple.

The Grapple is now being repositioned to allow Deep Drone to tackle the second black box, the voice recorder, located some 5m (15ft) away. The EgyptAir Boeing 767 crashed into the Atlantic off Nantucket, Massachusetts, on 31 October, shortly after taking off from New York for Cairo.

The search team located the cockpit voice and flight data recorders last week among wreckage about 75m (250ft) underwater, approximately 60 miles from the shore, but their efforts were hampered by rough weather.

Rescue workers took the new Magnum robot out to sea on Monday because it was able to operate in rougher seas than Deep Drone.

Trainee pilots

Most relatives of the crash victims have left the area, following a multi-faith prayer service in Newport at the weekend.

It has since emerged that two pilots on their first trans-Atlantic training mission were accompanying the crew on Flight 990.