A day after recovering the plane's cockpit voice recorder, a ship has also found and retrieved the flight data recorder, Egypt's Civil Aviation Authority says.
The journalists union has battled the government for decades. But journalists say the current period is the worst they can recall, with three top members of the union facing trial on Saturday.
Egypt's president says the submarine is heading to the area where the plane went down on Thursday. He cautions that determining what caused the crash could take "a lot of time."
The EgyptAir plane disappeared from radar over the Mediterranean early Thursday. It's still not clear what caused the plane to go down. Multiple reports indicate smoke was detected in the cabin.
At mosques across Egypt, worshippers prayed on Friday for those killed when an EgyptAir plane plunged into the Mediterranean a day earlier. The cause of the crash still isn't known.
Egypt's government faces mounting criticism. There's an insurgency in the Sinai Peninsula. The tourist industry is in tatters. And now, add to that a second aviation disaster in just over six months.
It's another sign that President Abdel Fattah al-Sissi will not tolerate dissent. Demonstrating without government permission is illegal in Egypt. The protests last month were small, but significant.