The voyage data recorder from the cargo ship El Faro, which sank in October during a hurricane off the Bahamas, was located on Tuesday in 15,000 feet of water, the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board said.
The recorder, which may contain hours of information related to the ship's engine and communications from its bridge before the sinking, was found using remotely operated undersea search equipment, the NTSB said, adding that the next step was determining how the device can be retrieved.
All 33 El Faro crew members died in the disaster.
The 790-foot El Faro went down off the Bahamas on Oct. 1 while on a cargo run between Florida and Puerto Rico. It was the worst cargo shipping disaster involving a U.S.-flagged vessel in more than three decades.
An earlier effort to find the recorder was not successful. Federal officials put hearings on the disaster on hold after two weeks in February, hoping that another search could retrieve the device and produce more detail.
"Finding an object about the size of a basketball almost three miles under the surface of the sea is a remarkable achievement," NTSB Chairman Christopher A. Hart said in a news release.