Originally Posted by
DaveReidUK
I don't see any reason why a team looking specifically for the FDR shouldn't have the (simple) means to remove the pinger, given that that's SOP.
Maybe they didn't need it, maybe they did.
Getting pedantic here- As someone else mentioned, you can see the tabs are damaged, almost identically with bent and sheared tabs(for a moment I thought they were the same recorder but there is some difference in the damage to the labels) If you think it likely they removed the pinger from a bent tab(assuming it stayed connected to the one that is still attached to the recorder), well, then, ok.
Here's a picture of an undamaged one that looks more similar to what was recovered - photovault.com/data/comps/IAC/IACV01P05_17.jpg