The recovered 'black box' (top) and the interior portion that contains flight data

In this story:

• 'Black box' blank
• Divers make dramatic ascent
• Stress counselors on hand
• Related video
• Related stories and sites

HALIFAX, Nova Scotia (CNN) -- Due to bad weather, divers won't resume their search for Swissair Flight 111's second "black box" -- the cockpit voice recorder -- until Wednesday at the earliest. Meantime, the flight-data recorder, recovered Sunday, contains no information from the crucial final minutes before the plane crashed, investigators said.

At the crash site, in the Atlantic five miles off shore, divers equipped with hand-held sonar searched at a depth of 190 feet on Monday for the plane's cockpit voice recorder. Signals from the device have been detected, but high seas forced suspension of the diving.

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If retrieved intact, the voice recorder would reveal other noises in the cockpit besides the pilots' conversation with controllers, portions of which were released Saturday. That conversation was cut off 10 minutes after the pilots reported smoke in the cockpit and minutes before the crash, which killed all 229 people aboard.

Data recorder blank

Canadian Transportation Safety Board chief investigator Vic Gerden said the flight data recorder, which was found intact Sunday, had not recorded any information once the plane dropped below 10,000 feet.

A strong possibility, he said, was that the plane lost electrical power at that stage.

The lack of flight recorder information could make it difficult for investigators to determine exactly what happened in the last minutes of the flight. When the plane lost radio contact with air traffic controllers in Moncton, New Brunswick, it was flying at about 10,000 feet.

Gerden said the flight-data recorder was in good condition and should have provided more than 100 types of information ranging from altitude and airspeed to whether the plane's smoke warning lights were on.

But he said there was no data from at least the last six minutes before the MD-11 jumbo jet plunged into the ocean off Nova Scotia on Wednesday night

The salvage ship Grapple, which aided in the recovery of TWA Flight 800 wreckage two years ago, is on its way to Halifax

Pinging signals from the cockpit recorder, which records sounds on the flight deck, were detected early Monday by a Canadian navy submarine, HMCS Okanagan, operating off the fishing hamlet of Peggy's Cove, about 25 miles south of Halifax.

Divers also were trying to confirm if three large pieces of wreckage found near the flight data recorder are sections of the plane's fuselage. Searchers were awaiting the arrival Wednesday of the U.S. Navy salvage ship USS Grapple, which will assist in the operation.

Although officials have declined to give an updated figure of how many bodies have been recovered from the crash site, they have indicated that most remain in the sea. Recovery of the fuselage could lead to recovery of many more bodies, officials said.

The head of the team of pathologists handling the remains of passengers and crew, Dr. John Butt, has said that very few bodies are likely to be found intact due to the impact of the crash.

Meanwhile, in a scare Monday night that was reminiscent of last week's crash, a charter plane belonging to a subsidiary of Swissair's parent company returned to Halifax shortly after reporting smoke in its galley.

The Balair/CTA Airbus A-310 was on a flight from Zurich to Vancouver via a scheduled stop in Halifax with 144 passengers on board, SAirGroup spokeswoman Beatrice Tschanz said in Zurich. The smoke was caused by a short-circuit, she said.

"It was not an emergency landing" and went without any problems, Tschanz said. The plane continued to Vancouver early today, she said.

Also Monday, Navy officers revealed dramatic details about Sunday's retrieval of the data recorder. Capt. Phil Webster said one of the two divers developed a leak in his suit, and the pair had to make an ascent -- clutching the black box -- much more rapidly than normal.

One of the divers became ill from the rapid change in pressure. Both were put in a decompression chamber, then taken to a hospital. Webster said both are recovering at home.

A service was held Sunday for victims' families

Meanwhile, the plane's manufacturer acknowledged that much of the electrical wiring aboard the plane was insulated with aromatic polymide tape, known by the trade name Kapton, which has been banned from use in U.S. Navy planes.

Boeing Co. spokeswoman Susan Bradley said all the general-purpose wiring aboard the plane was insulated with Kapton.

Air Safety Week, an industry newsletter, reported Monday that the U.S. Navy banned Kapton from its aircraft because of poor performance.

The Geneva-bound Swissair plane crashed 16 minutes after the pilots reported the smoke and decided to attempt an emergency landing more than an hour after leaving New York's Kennedy International Airport.

At the start of the emergency, the jet was flying at an altitude of 33,000 feet.

After reporting an emergency, the plane started toward the Halifax airport, but made two sharp turns as it tried to descend and dump fuel.

Swissair officials say the plane couldn't have made a direct approach to Halifax because it was flying too high and was too heavy with 30 tons of fuel. Swissair said the call was made 70 miles out of Halifax, but the pilots would have needed 130 miles to make a direct landing.

Cheryl Klein and her brother, Abe, whose father was killed, blamed the pilot for the crash.

"I think he wasted valuable time when he made that big circle to dump," said Cheryl.

Several hundred family members have come to the area to visit Peggy's Cove, attend memorial services and assist medical teams in trying to identify human remains retrieved by searchers.

More than 1,400 military personnel are involved in the search, and more than 200 stress counselors have been assigned to support them during their often grisly work.

"Some of the stuff they're being exposed to is truly horrible," said Mary Anne Murphy, a Coast Guard spokeswoman.

Reuters contributed to this report.