ISLAMABAD — Recovery workers on Saturday found the “black box” flight data recorder from the wreckage of Pakistan’s worst-ever plane crash, and it appeared to be in good condition, officials said.

The discovery could provide clues to why the Airblue flight crashed Wednesday into the hills overlooking the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, killing all 152 people onboard including two Americans. The answers may take weeks to get, however, because Pakistan will likely send the apparatus to another country for proper decoding.

The black box was found during a difficult recovery effort hampered by rain, mud and a lack of proper roads in the heavily forested Margalla Hills. It has been handed to aviation officials, said Ramzan Sajid, a spokesman for the Capital Development Authority, a government agency. He said the box was found in wreckage of the plane’s tail section.

Pakistan does not have the proper expertise to decode information stored on the recorder, so it plans to send it elsewhere, according to the Civil Aviation Authority.

The authority’s spokesman, Pervez George, said Friday that the decoding process could take a month.

The plane — an Airbus A321 model — had been ordered to take an alternative approach to the runway at Islamabad airport but had apparently veered off course, the Civil Aviation Authority said earlier this week.

Officials said the plane, which was flying to Islamabad from the southern Pakistani city of Karachi, had lost contact with the control tower before the crash, which occurred during stormy weather.

The impact of the crash was devastating, scorching a wide stretch of the hillside and scattering wreckage over around a half-mile (1 kilometer). Most bodies were so badly damaged that identification will require DNA testing, officials said.

Airblue is Pakistan-based carrier that has been flying since 2004. The airline has said the plane that crashed had had no known technical problems.