An Ethiopian Airlines passenger plane with 89 people on board has crashed into the Mediterranean sea shortly after takeoff from Beirut Airport.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8478060.stm

So sorry, for dat. Is there any survivor?

None yet

so sad

my heart goes to those people and their families. tragic

An Ethiopian Airlines plane with 90 people on board crashed into the sea shortly after taking off from Beirut in bad weather early on Monday. Nine bodies were recovered as a search for survivors began. Skip related content
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The Boeing 737-800, heading for Addis Ababa, disappeared off the radar some five minutes after taking off at 2:37 a.m. (12:37 a.m. British time) during a thunder storm and heavy rain. Lebanese President Michel Suleiman said he did not think the plane had been brought down deliberately.

"As of now, a sabotage act is unlikely. The investigation will uncover the cause," Suleiman told a news conference.

Eighty-three passengers and seven crew were on the flight, Lebanese Transport Minister Ghazi al-Aridi told reporters at the airport where relatives of the passengers gathered to wait for news of survivors.

"(The crash) site has been identified three-and-a-half km (two miles) west of the (coastal) village of Na'ameh," he said.

Fifty-four of those on board were Lebanese, 22 were Ethiopian, two were British and there were also Canadian, Russian, French, Iraqi and Syrian nationals.

Marla Pietton, wife of the French ambassador to Lebanon Denis Pietton, was on the plane, the French embassy said.

The Lebanese government declared a day of mourning.

"BALL OF FIRE"

Lebanese army patrol boats and helicopters were searching a small area off Na'ameh, 10 km (six miles) south of Beirut.

The military spokesman for U.N. peacekeepers in Lebanon, Colonel Diego Fulco, said two ships from its maritime task force were at the crash site and a third was on its way. Two U.N. helicopters were also at the scene, he said.

A Cypriot police helicopter and another from the British military stationed in Cyprus were also involved in the search.

According to one source, residents on the coast saw a "ball of fire" crashing off Na'ameh.

State-owned Ethiopian Airlines, which confirmed the crash, has positioned itself as a major player in international air traffic in Africa and has recently expanded its Asian network.

It has regular flights to Lebanon, catering for business clients and the hundreds of Ethiopians who work there as domestic helpers. Lebanese aviation sources said some of the passengers had been en route to Angola.

Last Friday the airline announced an order for 10 of Boeing's Next-Generation 737-800s for a total price of $767 million (475 million pounds).

The last major incident involving Ethiopian Airlines was in November 1996 when 125 of the 175 passengers and crew died after a hijacked Boeing 767 crashed into the sea off the Comoros Islands.

(Additional reporting by Yara Bayoumy and Mariam Karouny in Beirut and Michele Kambas in Nicosia; Writing by Nadim Ladki and Yara Bayoumy; Editing by Louise Ireland)

Ethiopian jet crash deaths rise as 34 bodies found

BEIRUT – An Ethiopian Airlines plane carrying 90 people caught fire and crashed into the sea minutes after taking off from Beirut early Monday, setting off a frantic search as passenger seats, baby sandals and other debris washed ashore. At least 34 bodies were recovered.

The cause of the crash was not immediately known. Lebanon has seen stormy weather since Sunday night, with crackling thunder, lightning and rain. The plane went down in darkness and crashed into water that reached just 64 Fahrenheit (18 degrees Celsius) by afternoon.

Lebanese President Michel Suleiman said terrorism was not suspected in the crash of Flight 409, which was headed for the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa.

"Sabotage is ruled out as of now," he said.

Weeping relatives streamed into Beirut's airport to wait for news on their loved ones. One woman dropped to her knees in tears; another cried out, "Where is my son?"

Andree Qusayfi said his 35-year-old brother, Ziadh, was traveling to Ethiopia for his job at a computer company, but was planning to return to Lebanon for good soon.

"We begged him to postpone his flight because of the storm," Qusayfi said, his eyes red from crying. "But he insisted on going because he had work appointments."

Zeinab Seklawi said her 24-year-old son Yasser called her as he was boarding.

"I told him, 'God be with you,' and I went to sleep," Seklawi said. "Please find my son. I know he's alive and wouldn't leave me."

The dead include several children, according to a Lebanese defense official who asked that his name not be used because he is not authorized to speak to publicly.

The Boeing 737-800 took off around 2:30 a.m. (7:30 p.m. EST) and went down 2 miles (3.5 kilometers) off the coast, said Ghazi Aridi, the public works and transportation minister. The Lebanese army said in a statement the plane was on fire shortly after takeoff.

"The weather undoubtedly was very bad," Aridi told reporters at the airport.

Pieces of the plane and debris were washing ashore in the hours after the crash, including passenger seats, a baby sandal, a fire extinguisher and bottles of medicine.

The wife of Denis Pietton, the French ambassador to Lebanon, was on the plane, according to the French embassy.

Helicopters and naval ships were scrambled for a rescue effort as huge waves slammed into the shore. Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri announced a day of mourning and closed schools and government offices.

A statement from the defense ministry in Cyprus, which sent reinforcements to help in the search, said 34 bodies have been recovered so far.

Ethiopian Airlines' CEO Girma Wake told journalists in Addis Ababa that he had no information on the fate of those on board or about the cause of the crash. He said the aircraft had been serviced on Dec. 25 and passed inspection.

He also said the plane had been leased in September from CIT Aerospace. Calls to CIT Aerospace were not immediately returned Monday.

The plane was carrying 90 people, including 83 passengers and 7 crew, Lebanese officials said. Aridi, the transportation minister, identified the passengers as 54 Lebanese, 22 Ethiopians, one Iraqi, one Syrian, one Canadian of Lebanese origin, one Russian of Lebanese origin, a French woman and two Britons of Lebanese origin.

Ethiopian Airlines reported that there were 82 passengers and eight crew; the discrepancy could not immediately be explained.

The Boeing 737 is considered one of the safest planes in airline service. The jet was first introduced in the 1960s, and today is the workhorse on many short- and medium-range routes.

Still, over the past 15 years it was involved in a series of incidents and crashes linked to a valve in the rudder assembly. This reportedly would malfunction and cause the rudder to turn independently of the pilot's commands.

The problem was considered resolved after operators of older Boeing 737s were ordered to carry out inspections and upgrades of the critical rudder control systems.

Sidney Dekker, a professor of flight safety at the School of Aviation at Lund University in Sweden, said the rudder problem has been corrected by the manufacturer and that he'd be "hugely surprised" if it had anything to do with the crash.

Dekker, himself a 737 pilot, said that if reports of an engine fire proved to be correct, the accident could have possibly resulted from a loss of control at relatively low altitude.

He noted that the 737's engines were overpowered in order to fulfill single-engine takeoff performance requirements. "This tends to produce a turning movement toward the dead engine in the case of the loss of a powerplant at takeoff," he said.

Poor visibility in low cloud combined with high winds may have contributed to the problem faced by the pilots, he said.

In February 2009, a Turkish Airlines Boeing 737-800 plane crashed short of the runway at Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport, killing nine passengers and crew. Dutch investigators say the plane crashed because of a false reading from a faulty altimeter.

The state-owned Ethiopian Airlines announced last week that it signed an agreement with Boeing to buy 10 more of the 737-800s at an estimated $767 million. The order will expand the airline's fleet from the 36 aircraft it has now — not including the 737-800 that crashed Monday.

Aviation safety analyst Chris Yates said it was far too early to say what caused the crash, but he noted that modern aircraft are built to withstand all but the foulest weather conditions.

"One wouldn't have thought that a nasty squall in and of itself would be the prime cause of an accident like this," said Yates, an analyst based in Manchester, England. He noted that reports of fire could suggest "some cataclysmic failure of one of the engines" or that something had been sucked into the engine, such as a bird or debris.

Ethiopian Airlines has long had a reputation for high-quality service compared to other African airlines, with two notable crashes in more than 20 years.

A hijacked Ethiopian Airlines jet crash-landed off the Comoros Islands in the Indian Ocean when it ran out of fuel in November 1996, killing 126 of the 175 people aboard. In September 1988, an Ethiopian Airlines jet crashed shortly after taking off when it ran into a flock of birds, killing 31 of the 104 people on board.

Boeing said it is coordinating with the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board to assist Lebanese authorities in the investigation.

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People should stop flying this Airline,
what a pity!

Ethipian Airline is the most travelled airline in Africa.

This will undoubtedly spoil business.

Condolences to the bereaved families.

Ethiopian Airlines does not have the appalling safety record of say Air India or Aeroflot, and that Boeing 737-800 was a fairly new aircraft. The pilots on this ill-fated flight , or their bosses at dispatch, tragically decided to gamble on taking off in a violent storm that would have placed any aircraft in serious danger, and they lost to the unforgiving fury of mother nature.

Ethiopia get airline again!
Abi na bus line?
Anyway sympathies to the families of the dead/injured.

May the souls of the departed rest in peace. Amen.

osaass:

Ethiopia get airline again!
Abi na bus line?
Anyway sympathies to the families of the dead/injured.

This is the best airline in AFRICAN!

The pilots on this ill-fated flight , or their bosses at dispatch, tragically decided to gamble on taking off in a violent storm that would have placed any aircraft in serious danger, and they lost to the unforgiving fury of mother nature.

It is too early to say but normally lightning/thunderstom is no problem for modern wide-body jetliners.

otawa:

It is too early to say but normally lightning/thunderstom is no problem for modern wide-body jetliners.

To the contrary, commercial and military flights are regularly delayed due to bad weather, and as a reminder of the perils awaiting all who tempt fate by getting airborne in severe storms, aviation history is rife with instances of planes downed by lightning strikes or massive turbulence, with a couple of recent examples being the loss of an Air France A340 when it ran into a monster tropical storm off the coast of Africa, followed by the near loss of another Air France A340 at virtually the same spot in a similar storm a month later.

In short, violent storms destroy and down aircraft just as easily as mountainous seas sink the largest of ships, and that, in addition to the apparent engine fire observed on this Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 737-800 as it rotated into the air at the runway's end, sealed the fate of all souls aboard.

To the contrary, commercial and military flights are regularly delayed due to bad weather, and as a reminder of the perils awaiting all who tempt fate by getting airborne in severe storms, aviation history is rife with instances of planes downed by lightning strikes or massive turbulence, with a couple of recent examples being the loss of an Air France A340 when it ran into a monster tropical storm off the coast of Africa, followed by the near loss of another Air France A340 at virtually the same spot in a similar storm a month later.

It is not conclusive what actually caused loss of Air France FLIGHT 447.

Forty minutes later, a four-minute-long series of automatic radio messages was received from the plane, indicating numerous problems and warnings. The exact meanings of these messages are still under investigation, but the aircraft is believed to have been lost shortly after it sent the automated messages

Many other flights took off just before and after Airfrance 447 and nothing happened to them.

50% of all crashes are due to Pilot error only 12% is due to weather.

We wait for recovery of the black box for this crash and hopefully meaningful compensation for the families.