NDJAMENA (AFP) — An Ethiopian Airlines passenger jet which made an emergency landing in Chad due to a radar problem took off again today, but 120 of its 150 passengers refused to board, airport authorities said.
The plane, a Boeing 737 en route from Dakar in Senegal to Addis Ababa via Bamako in Mali, “left this morning at 5:00 am (0400 GMT),” said an airport official, as well as airport police.
The incident comes days after another Ethiopian Airlines 737 with 90 people on board crashed into the Mediterranean minutes after takeoff from Beirut during a raging thunderstorm on Monday. There were no survivors.
Of the 150 passengers on the African flight, “120 refused to leave on the Boeing,” an airport official said. “They have been put up in different hotels. A large plane will come to collect them.”
Contacted by AFP, an Ethiopian Airlines spokesman in Ndjemena declined to comment and said that an “information office” had been opened by the company in Addis Ababa.
On Thursday, the Boeing 737 “circled around N’Djamena for one hour before making an emergency call. There was a radar problem, so it landed,” an airport official said.
An airport source said the plane, which had made a stopover in Bamako, Mali, was dumping its fuel before landing.
The same plane had already experienced electrical troubles when leaving Dakar earlier Thursday, and had had to return, passengers said.
The housing market bubble in Ethiopia is about to burst as mortgage holders, including many of those in the Diaspora, fail to make payments to the Commercial Bank of Ethiopia (CBE), an investigation by the Ethiopian Review Intelligence Unit reveals. CBC is now sitting on over 200 billion birr unpaid principal balance. The Woyanne junta has recently ordered the banks not to foreclose any house until after the election in May 2010… details later
As investigations continue into the Ethiopian Airlines plane crash on Monday, relations between the Ethiopian and Lebanese communities seem to be under strain.
Ethiopian Airlines flight ET409 crashed into the Mediterranean Sea just minutes after taking off from Beirut’s Rafik Hariri International Airport during a heavy thunderstorm early morning. Some 90 passengers were aboard, including 54 Lebanese and 30 Ethiopian nationals, seven of whom were crew members. No survivors have been found, though a number of bodies have been pulled from the water.
Officials from both countries have remained diplomatic in the face of the disaster, with Prime Minister Saad Hariri and Health Minister Mohammad Jawad Khalifeh paying their condolences at the Ethiopian Consulate. But not everyone has been so courteous.
After Lebanon’s Transport and Public Works Minister Ghazi Aridi suggested Tuesday pilot error could have caused the crash, several Lebanese media outlets carried stories inferring Ethiopia was to blame.
“The aviation discipline is such that when there is an accident, you don’t rush to conclusions, you have to wait for the investigation to be completed,” Ethiopian Airlines CEO Girma Wake told reporters on Tuesday following Aridi’s comments. “Rushing remarks, I don’t think … helps anybody.”
Message boards on Lebanese and Ethiopian websites have seen a flurry of activity, with tersely-worded accusations being hurled on either side. One commentator on the Al-Arabiya website said they believed “the Lebanese government is looking for a scapegoat” to cover up for poor airport safety.
On Monday night a regional broadcaster conducted a live interview outside the Rafik Hariri University Hospital, where bodies of the passengers are being taken. A bereaved Ethiopian who accidently walked into shot was quickly dragged out of view by the television crew.
At the hospital grounds Thursday, a group of Ethiopian women gathered to wait for news of their friends. They initially said they had been treated well by the Lebanese following the plane crash but later said they were being ignored. “There are too many problems here,” said one woman who wished to be identified as Kelile. “Many of our friends aren’t being allowed to come to the hospital. The employer of one of our friends didn’t even tell her that her sister had been onboard.”
There are around 20,000 Ethiopian migrant workers in Lebanon, mostly women who work as live-in house-keepers or nannies. According to many of those gathered outside the hospital, many of those who perished on Monday were workers who were returning home after finishing their contracts in Lebanon. Others were escaping abusive employers. “The friend I had on the plane was just released from prison,” one woman told The Daily Star, declining to identify herself or her friend. Her friend spent nine months in prison because her papers were not in order.
Pathologist Ahmad al-Muqdad told OTV the Lebanese would accept DNA samples from the Ethiopian Consulate in Beirut to help identify Ethiopian victims on board, but did not say whether genetic data would be sent to Ethiopia.
“I had friends on the plane,” said Ethiopian freelance worker Desta (not her real name). “They worked hard in Lebanon and some weren’t treated well by their employers. It makes me so sad to think how much they suffered here and then, on their way home, to have this happen.”
Desta said she’d heard from other members of her community that relatives of Ethiopian passengers were put in a separate waiting room at Beirut’s international airport following the crash. “It’s as if we’ll contaminate them [the Lebanese],” she said. “But everyone is suffering. Don’t the Ethiopian families deserve respect too?”
Search teams on Thursday sought to recover the black boxes from an Ethiopian aircraft that crashed off Lebanon’s coast, with hope the data would provide answers to the mystery surrounding the tragedy.
“We expect to have them some time today,” Lebanese Transport Minister Ghazi Aridi told AFP.
An international search team picked up signals from the flight data recorders late Wednesday approximately 10 kilometres (six miles) west of Beirut airport at a depth of 1,300 metres (4,265 feet) below sea level.
“As of this morning we are evaluating the necessary means to retrieve the boxes,” a military spokesman told AFP, requesting anonymity.
“We hope to find the plane in the coming hours,” the military spokesman said.
Aridi confirmed that the body of the Boeing 737-800 had yet to be located four days after the tragedy, in which all 90 passengers and crew are presumed dead.
Ethiopian Airlines Flight 409, bound for Addis Ababa, crashed into the Mediterranean minutes after takeoff from Beirut at 2:37 am (0037 GMT) during a raging thunderstorm on Monday.
Only 14 bodies, including those of two toddlers, and some body parts have been recovered so far.
Lebanese dailies carried obituaries for some of the passengers on Thursday, including some who have not yet been found.
Rescue officials have said a number of the bodies may still be strapped to their seats underwater and hope to recover them once they find the wreckage.
There were conflicting reports as to whether the jet exploded while still airbound or after it had hit the water, and officials have said there will be no answers until the data from the black boxes is retrieved and analysed.
Lebanese authorities have said they are counting on the flight data recorders to explain why the pilot veered off course on takeoff but have ruled out sabotage.
They have also cautioned against blaming the pilot without sufficient evidence.
Lebanese officials have said the pilot acknowledged instructions from the Beirut airport control tower to avoid the storm.
“To say there was pilot error is pure speculation,” Aridi told AFP earlier, echoing similar comments by the defence ministry.
Ethiopian Airlines spokesperson Wogayehu Tefere said the pilot was experienced and had been with the company for 20 years.
“He had been a co-pilot on this aircraft before and he flew this route on a regular basis as well as other routes,” he said.
The US National Transportation Safety Board and the French body for civil aviation security, the Bureau D’Enquetes et D’Analyses (BEA), have sent experts to join a team investigating the tragedy.
An international search operation was launched by the Lebanese navy, the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), a civilian boat from Cyprus and US navy destroyer USS Ramage with sonar equipment.
Ethiopian Airlines has had two other deadly accidents over the past 25 years, one of which was a hijacking which ended in a crash when the plane ran out of fuel.
Flight 409 had 30 Ethiopian nationals on board, including the seven crew members. Most of the Ethiopian passengers were employed in Lebanon as domestic workers and were flying home to see their families.
There were also 54 Lebanese on board, most of them Shiites from southern Lebanon. Many were transiting in Addis Ababa to other countries in Africa, where they work.
Also among the passengers was Marla Sanchez Pietton, wife of France’s ambassador to Lebanon.
The U.K. chapter of Ethiopian People’s Patriotic Front (EPPF) held a historic meeting in London Sunday, January 24 where for the first time Ethiopians and Eritreans came together under one roof to discuss about their common interests.
The public meeting was called in line with a resolution passed by the October 2009 EPPF conference that was held in the field, which calls on chapters to organize people to people meetings around the world. The October conference was attended by EPPF executive and central committee members, and representatives of chapters from the U.S. and Europe.
EPPF UK Chapter executive committee member Alemayehu Mengesha opened Sunday’s meeting with a brief welcoming speech. Ato Ayele Angelo, former member of Kinijit Central Committee, delivered the keynote address. Representing the EPPF U.K., Ato Sileshi Tilahun talked about the organization’s aims, current activities, Ethiopia-Eritrea relations, and the upcoming elections in Ethiopia.
Other guest speakers included Dr Wondimu Mekonnen, a prominent Ethiopian civil rights activist; General Tamene Dilnesaw, former Ethiopian ambassador in Israel and military attache in the former East Bloc countries; LiqeMemher Abebaw Yigzaw, a senior Ethiopian church scholar, and Wzr. Sabra Mohamed, a community activist. They delivered a message of support to EPPF.
EPPF meeting in London, Sunday, Jan. 24, 2010
Representatives of the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF), Ato Mustefa Abdella; the Sidama Liberation Front (SLF), Ato Betenan Hotesu; and from the Eritrean community, Dr Bereket Fesehatsion and Ato Seyoum Tsegai, delivered solidarity messages during the meeting. OLF representative could not attend the meeting due to a schedule conflict, but sent a message of solidarity in writing to EPPF-UK.
Sunday’s EPPF meeting in London was broadcast live around the world via Ethiopian Review’s newly opened paltalk room. The room will be opened every Sunday from 3:00 – 6:00 PM Eastern U.S. Time
The EPPF Washington Metro Chapter will hold a similar meeting in February. Details will be posted shortly.
