ADDIS ABABA (PANA) — Lebanon will hand over the recovered Flight Data Recorder (Black Box) of the crashed Ethiopian Airlines jet, ET 409, to the French authorities for investigations, Ethiopian Airlines Chief Executive Girma Wake said on Sunday.
‘The flight data recorder has been recovered. The search crews are in the process of retrieving the cockpit voice recorder. Once they are retrieved, they will be sealed and taken to France for decoding,’ the Ethiopian Airlines CEO told PANA by phone.
The Ethiopian Airlines plane with 90 people on board crashed off the coast of Lebanon on 25 January, shortly after take-off. The search crews located the main parts of the aircraft’s rear wings on Sunday.
Mr Wake said the Lebanese authorities had decided the flight data recorder would be handed over to the French authorities for â~decoding.’
‘It will be read in the presence of the Ethiopian authorities, the Lebanese and the representatives of the Boeing Corporation of US,’ Mr Wake said.
The flight data recorder will tell the investigators the possible causes of the crash.
It will indicate the exact speed at which the jet went down and could also tell if any instruments malfunctioned after take-off.
The cockpit voice recorder, which has not been retrieved, will tell the investigators the exact details of the conversations between the pilot and the airport control tower.
The aircraft, a Boeing 737-800, was last checked in December, 2009 and proved to be fit to fly.
France and Canada have been best known for the decoding of flight data and cockpit data recorders. The French are known to have pioneered the introduction of the flight data recorders in air accident investigations.
Navy commandos have recovered the flight recorders from the Ethiopian Airlines jet that crashed off the coast of Lebanon last month, killing all 90 people on board.
The Lebanese military says navy commandos retrieved the jet’s flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder on Sunday.
The recorders were taken to a Beirut naval base, where they were given to investigators. The two “black boxes” will be flown to France for analysis.
Lebanese Transport Minister Ghazi Aridi said searchers also located the cockpit and parts of the fuselage Sunday. Eight more bodies from the crash were recovered, bringing the total to 23.
The Boeing 737 went down January 25 just minutes after takeoff from Beirut during a heavy thunderstorm. The plane was headed for Ethiopia’s capital, Addis Ababa.
The plane abruptly changed direction shortly after take-off, and officials have said the pilot was unresponsive to appeals to correct its course. But Lebanese and Ethiopian officials have cautioned against blaming the pilot until the flight recorders are reviewed.
The jet broke apart in mid-air, erupted into flames and crashed into the sea.
Ethiopian Airlines is considered one of Africa’s best carriers. It operates regular flights to Lebanon, where thousands of Ethiopians work.
Searchers located the black boxes of an Ethiopian Airlines plane that crashed in the sea off Lebanon last month killing 90 people, Transport Minister Ghazi Aridi said on Saturday.
“The boxes have been found under the rear part of the fuselage” which was found on Saturday morning, the Lebanese minister told AFP.
“Lebanese army divers have gone down to retrieve them, but this operation will take time,” said Aridi.
“We have to be cautious because we must preserve the data contained in the boxes,” he added.
Aridi stressed special measures would be taken to bring to the surface the flight recorders in a way to avoid any damage that could be detrimental to the information they contain.
The minister also said he had been informed by the Syrian authorities that debris from the plane had been found in the Mediterranean Sea off the western city of Lattakia.
He said earlier that the search vessel, Ocean Alert, had located the rear sections of the aircraft’s cabin.
The sections found were between 10 and 12 metres (33 and 40 feet) long, and at a depth of 45 metres (150 feet) off Naameh, 12 kilometres (seven miles) south of Beirut, Aridi said.
The Boeing 737-800 went down before dawn on January 25, just minutes after take-off during stormy weather from Beirut airport. It was bound for Addis Ababa with 83 passengers and seven crew on board.
No survivors were found from Flight 409, and only 15 bodies have so far been recovered.
Aridi said he hoped other sections of the plane would soon be found, along with bodies of the remaining victims still thought to be strapped to their seats.
Of the 15 bodies found, nine were Lebanese, five Ethiopian and one Iraqi. Fifty-four Lebanese were on board the aircraft.
The Lebanese military said on Saturday that “pictures are being taken” of the located section of fuselage with a view to raising it.
Flight recorders are usually placed in the rear of commercial airliners.
Lebanese officials have said the captain was instructed by the control tower to change to a certain heading, but that the aircraft then took a different course.
Experts have told AFP that the stormy weather may not have been the only reason for the crash, and that the aircraft may have had engine or hydraulics problems.
It took an article on LA Times to help me gather my thoughts together. I knew there was some thing missing in the story unfolding in front of me. The article by Alexandra Sandels and Borzou Daragahi of Los Angles Times brought it all in focus.
ET409 is a tragic story. We all felt the pain. Although death is a natural occurrence, an accident like ET409 has unpleasant effect on all of us. It is death magnified. ET409 was death in the family. Sudden unexpected death.
Then the passenger manifest started to come out. There were eighty passengers and seven crewmembers. Twenty-two of the passengers were Ethiopians returning home from Lebanon. As far as the foreign press is concerned they were ordinary passengers. Business people or vacationers returning home. But we Ethiopians know better. It was no surprise to us that they were all women. No one has to tell us they will all be young. We have close relatives like that all over the Middle East. They are the surplus Ethiopians.
This group of Ethiopians returned home in a body bag. Some will stay in the Mediterranean. All will have a special place in our hearts. On the other hand talk to any Ethiopian Airlines employee and they will tell you the horror stories of the returnees from the Middle East. The trip back home should be renamed the ‘horror express’. Some return with deep psychological scars, some with visible body scars and some in a casket. Some sit there like zombies unable to talk, afraid to move unsure of themselves. Some come back home to die. They will never recover from the deep humiliation and abuse.
They all go there to better themselves and their family. There used to be a long line stretching all the way to the street and sidewalk in front of the old courthouse in Ledeta. It was a line of girls registering a name change to go to the Middle East. Having a Muslim name was a plus. Then came Woyane and institutionalized the process. They called it employment opportunity and started to charge for the service. Woyane makes a lot of money selling citizens. It is a very lucrative business. It is true they started selling maids to the Middle East before they graduated to selling children to the West in the so-called ‘adoption’ scam.
So our sisters flock to the Middle East to make something of their life. In Lebanon, Dubai, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia etc. they join others like them from the Far East in perpetual servitude. They enter a region with no laws, minimal view of human right and total absence of justice. The plight of our people in the Middle East is an open secret. The suffering and humiliation have been told and retold plenty of times. They jump from high-rise building and kill themselves. They kill their tormentors in self-defense. Unable to understand their agony their brain shuts off.
So the ones that died in the accident are the carriers of this horror. Despite all this happening to them our sisters are on of the highest contributors to Woyane’s 10% growth that is told and retold again and again. Let us take Lebanon by itself. They say there are over twenty five thousand Ethiopians working there. Let us assume each one sends US $100.00 per month. That is US$ 2.5 Million per month and US $30 Million a year. In Ethiopia that will be $390 Million Bir. A lot of money if you ask me. That is what you would call a cash cow.
How does the Ethiopian government appreciate the contribution of these citizens that cling to their motherland despite the threat to their well-being. Silence and indifference is their response. So it was a surprise to see the Woyane Foreign Minster in Beirut after the accident. There he was sitting with the Lebanese Prime Minister. Why did he go there is a good question? Did he go there to gather his people around him and console them in this time of grief? Did he go to meet with friend and family of the victims and tell them their government’s commitment to help in the search and rescue effort? Did he go there to give them moral strength? Did he go there to hold their hands and be with them? I am afraid the answer is none of the above. In Woyane’s Ethiopia those who rule don’t mingle with those ordinary Ethiopians. His Excellency does not have time for uneducated simple maids.
Then why did he go? Well he went as his capacity as Board Chairman of Ethiopian Airlines. Yes he is the Chairman of the Board. Don’t ask what his qualifications are for such a high post. Does his resume shows his talent in managing a little kiosk? Does it show his education and capacity for such a demanding job? Does he have a track record of growing a business? The answer is none of the above. His qualification is his membership in TPLF. Thus he went there because some Lebanese officials used to degrading our Ethiopian sisters upgraded their contempt and questioned the skill of the pilots and crew. The Foreign Minster went there to calm the nerves of the Lebanese officials. He went there to protect the integrity of his cash cow called Ethiopian Airlines. Why they don’t change the name to ‘Woyane Airlines’ is a mystery. The only thing Ethiopian is the name. In America they call it truth in advertising.
Thus it was no surprise to see my Diaspora friends decrying the racism of the Lebanese in the ill treatment of those in grief. Despite the fact that the horrible condition of the Ethiopian guest workers is known to all of us some of us choose to vent our rage on the people of Lebanon. I agree with Fekade, it is totally ‘a misplaced rage’. Our rage should be directed at those that allow such conditions to exist. Our indignations should be directed at the root of the problem. We should be careful in our wholesale condemnation of the Lebanese people. We should be aware that there still are over twenty five thousand of our people working there. We don’t want to contribute for their further ill treatment. Our quarrel is with the TPLF regime that considers the rest of us as trespassers in our own land. We fix our house first and the world will shower us with respect and love. As Henry Thoreau said ‘there are thousands hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the roots…’ don’t tell me you are still hacking at the branches! That is so yesterday my friend. Rage against Lebanon is hacking the branch.
The harrowing experience of Ethiopians on the doomed Ethiopian airliner in the Mediterranean Sea last week, and the racist ways in which grieving Ethiopians who were trying to know the fate of their fellow Ethiopians on the plane were treated in Lebanon, could have been used to raise important questions and start a more important discussion. Sadly, it is being deflected in a useless direction – complaint about racism, anger at the wrong parties and a cyber-war or words with the wrong culprit. Frankly, I find the self deceptiveness and empty bravado and hypocrisy of my fellow Ethiopians more maddening than the racism and degrading treatment of Ethiopians in Lebanon which we know exists in the region all along. It is good to be angry and not unreasonable at all. But it will be a foolish exercise if we don’t know where to direct our rage to. In my view, this anger has to be directed primarily at ourselves for letting this to happen to us. If we think that this experience is an isolated case then we have closed our eyes. What has gone so wrong with our generation, the sons and daughters of a proud people, who throughout the ages fought hard to keep their pride and dignity and never let anybody look down on them? What the damn went wrong with us!
As we often do in many cases, we are taking our eyes off the big picture, completely failing to raise and answer the most important questions that we need to ask ourselves about our country and ourselves as a people. How and why have we ended up being subjected to this kind of humiliation and racism and how are we going to end it? How is it that the beacon of hope and freedom of black people around the world ended up making an industry out of exporting their beautiful children to slave labor in the Middle East at the turn of a new century?
To those of you who seemed to be angry by the racist treatment of our fellow Ethiopians, I have some more questions for you. What were you expecting a bunch of maidservants who live and work much like medieval slaves were going to be treated like in a country where most people only know them as domestic slaves? Do we expect them to read our history before they buy their slaves and be forced to care that we Ethiopians are a proud and dignified people with a along and proud history of not allowing ourselves to be looked down upon by anybody? Was this the only incident and instance that Ethiopians have been treated in inhuman, degrading and racist ways around the Middle East? Have you asked why even our Airline, Ethiopian, the island of modernity in Ethiopia that we are all proud of for its world class service and record, and frankly, one that dwarfs most Middle East carriers in every respect, couldn’t dodge the racism. Have you seen how minutes after the accident and before any evidence was available, the transport minister of Lebanon and their journalists blamed the accident on the pilot. And mind you, this is a terrorist infested area and the first eye witnesses were saying the plane went down in flames. You see, after all, Ethiopian Airlines is owned and operated by a country and people that dump their beautiful children as slaves in their countries to work seven days a week in the most dehumanizing conditions. So, what in the world have we expected them to treat us like other than in indignity?
There are many more questions that any Ethiopian worthy of self respect should ask. How many times have you heard epidemic levels of Ethiopian suicides in the Middle East? How many of us have heard Ethiopian girls throwing themselves from the top floors of buildings to end their misery in these countries? Haven’t you heard that the Ethiopian embassies in these countries routinely tell our slave sisters to go to hell whenever they ask for help? How many times have we heard that boatloads of Ethiopians travelling from Bosaso in Somaliland sink in the Red Sea while attempting to reach the cost of the Arabian Peninsula where they were treated like animals? Have you wondered why hours after the first boat capsized with all Ethiopians on board others keep riding the next ramshackle boat taking a chance on their lives? Haven’t we seen pictures of Ethiopian women beaten, sometimes even burnt by their masters in this region? How often have we heard women thrown into jail, or their passports confiscated and thrown out on the streets for voulchers to play with them? Have we not heard that many are often denied their slave salaries by their masters and thrown out on streets? Have we not heard that many dead Ethiopians are simply buried in the sands and vanish like the wind? How many of us have heard Ethiopian maidservants calling the voice of America or Ethiopian community radio stations in the West to tell us harrowing stories of mistreatment and racism pleading with us for help? An Ethiopian airline crew member I met recently told me that it is not unusual to travel from the Middle East to Addis Ababa with many young Ethiopian girls who suffer from extreme forms of depression and trauma, some who lost their minds and behave strangely. Yes, there is some awful thing happening to us as a people and we seem to be lost. If there is anything strange in this particular case, it is our attempt to treat it as an isolated case, a self deception that borders on stupidity. Rather than blame ourselves for letting this happen to us we tend to project it elsewhere.
The first job of any government anywhere is to protect its citizens, so we hear in nearly all countries. In that case we have no government. We have allowed robber barons to rule over us. The anger should be directed at us for letting our country be run by a slave trading oligarchy – the government of Meles Zenawi that turned selling young Ethiopian girls in the Middle East into a huge industry. I hear that this slave trade is now becoming one of Meles Zenawi’s most important hard currency earning businesses in the country.
From time to time I meet some pigs who feed at Meles Zenawi’s trough. They tell me something I already know very well. They tell me the economy in Ethiopia is growing. Nobody is contesting that other than the inflated statistics cooked-up in Meles Zenawi’s office for propaganda purposes. This is not even a secret. I have heard it from people who work on analyzing and reporting the data. These pigs, like any pig, hardly understand the meaning of economic growth and development as it relates to social welfare and how to measure it and account for the source of the growth and who benefits out of it. If they see buildings and asphalted roads and bridges and a few people in Addis Ababa and elsewhere striking it rich overnight, that’s it- economy is growing. They seem to have very little clue that the TPLF is expected to do something for a living or that it is supposed to show us something in the form of growth for being one of the world’s most important destinations of billions of dollars of foreign aid in the world and the huge remittance from millions of Ethiopians abroad, including from the slave labor its sells to the Middle East and the massive number of children it sells for adoption? By the way, have you stood by at major terminals of Ethiopian Airlines? The most common scene is a parade of people carrying small Ethiopian children. I once saw an old Ethiopian woman crying profusely at the site of the little children at Dulles Airport in Virginia. These adopters say they pay a fortune to Mr. Zenawi’s government to get these children. Did you hear that the government of Australia saw the obscenity and was forced to stop it recently? Is this a proud thing to do for a people and a country which boasts “unheard of” economic growth?
The naming of the Abay Bridge by Meles Zenawi is an interesting illustration of how Meles himself and the pigs at his trough perceive economic growth and development. According to the local media reported at the time of the inauguration of the bridge, Meles Zenawi named the bridge “Hidasse dildiy” – meaning the “bridge of renaissance.” What makes this interesting is that the construction of the bridge was 100% funded by the Japanese government! Silu semta doro tanqa motech!
Whatever its source, what is economic growth or development anyway if it is not meant to improve the life of people? Why is it that our loss of pride and dignity and humiliation so positively correlated with this reported growth? I mean, how is it that the more the country grows economically, the more people live in humiliation and desperation, and the number of the poor increases exponentially? Who is getting rich any way? What the pigs and the TPLF officials don’t tell you is that the number of the absolute poor and the perennially aid dependent population more than tripled since TPLF arrived in Addis Ababa almost two decades ago? Beggary is no more a humiliating exercise in Ethiopia. It used to be. If you happen to meet any of these pigs, or any of the government officials who brag about economic growth in Ethiopia, ask them to show you what the country manufactures and sells to the world other than good old coffee and other agricultural products that we began exporting a century ago. Ask them how many extractive industries like mining are operating.
And lo and behold, a slavery of epic proportions is hovering at your door steps. If you are not redirecting the anger and rise up to make changes as any people worthy of dignity and respect must do now, wait until the Middle East tycoons begin operating the land Meles Zenawi is selling them at bargain prices now. If you think the current land grab in Ethiopia is traditional investment and not colonialism, just wait until your relatives begin working in the Egyptian, Arabian and Asian plantations. I am not sure if it will be too late by then. If you are angry that you are despised outside of your country, you will see what it looks like when they come home to take the land our fathers fought hard to leave for us. But when are we going to say enough is enough! Ehhhhhhhhhhh!
Hany Gebre was killed in the crash of an Ethiopian Airlines flight on January 25
Sunday morning, I went with the photojournalist Matthew Cassel (Just Image) to the Ethiopian Full Gospel Church, in Sebtiyeh, just outside of Beirut, for Sunday services and the funeral of one of the congregants, Hany Gebre, who died in the crash of Ethiopian Airlines Flight 409 last Monday.
If you are looking to understand the plight of Ethiopian domestic workers in Lebanon, look no further than the fact that this service — six days after the incident — was the first time the Ethiopian community could reliably get time off from work to gather. About 150 women — and they were ALL women — were there, and many cried for the entire three hour service, which was conducted through song and spoken word, wholly in Amharic. Representatives from the Ethiopian Consulate stopped by to pay their respects and distribute their personal mobile numbers, which everyone in attendance dutifully wrote down. They, too, left in tears.
The ceremony itself was spectacular — haunting in its beauty and sorrow.
Ethiopians mourn in Beirut (Photo: Matthew Cassel)
I went with a friend and journalist today to cover a service at an Ethiopian church outside Beirut to remember one its members, Hany Gebre, along with 89 other people, mostly Lebanese and Ethiopians, killed on an Ethiopian Airlines flight that crashed into the Mediterranean Sea shortly after takeoff last Monday. Hany was employed as a domestic worker in Lebanon and was on the way to visit her family for the first time since she came to Lebanon three years ago when the plane went down. The community of Ethiopian women at the church is tightly knit, and most women said they knew Hany well. We entered to a roomful of sobbing women listening to the animated preacher singing prayers in Amharic.
It was an awkward experience for me to again take pictures of a room full of people letting their tears flow, and like I told my friend in the church, I hate taking pictures in these situations but I know that I should so others can see. As he sat there with his notebook I thought of a quote by Lewis Wickes Hine, one of my favorite photographers who once said, “If I could tell the story in words, I wouldn’t need to lug around a camera.” Even though my Canon isn’t quite as obtrusive as the cameras were in Hine’s day, the act itself will always be obtrusive in a situation like this and make me wish that I could remain unseen in a corner capturing the scene by jotting down notes in a small notebook.
At one point I had to leave the emotional scene in the church and get some “fresh air” by smoking a cigarette across the street. Outside, I sat staring at the Lebanese passersby. I wondered what a society that many have increasingly called “racist” thinks of the hundreds of black women who gather in their neighborhood each Sunday.
I noticed an older Lebanese woman walk past with her Ethiopian “helper.” In the standard contract that all employers must sign, migrant domestic workers in Lebanon are allowed to take at least one day off per week (usually Sunday), but many employers prevent them from doing so. I assume this was an example of that. The Ethiopian worker, arm-in-arm with her employer, glanced inside the church as they walked past and immediately started crying on the street. The Lebanese woman seemed not to notice (or not to care) as she asked the worker for help while she rummaged through her oversized handbag.
Since the death of Theresa Seda across the street from my home, I’ve been increasingly involved in the plight of foreign workers in Lebanon. Previously, I hadn’t focused on this issue because my reason for being in the Middle East is to combat a highly inaccurate image of this region and its people being portrayed in much of the Western media. If I was going to cover the exploitation of workers, I wouldn’t need to travel half the globe to do so. And I distrust many Western journalists who come here critical of everything Arab while ignoring their own government’s role in shaping this war-torn and unstable part of the world. But the abuse of workers in this country is unavoidable. Every time I leave the house I see a foreign woman carrying a bratty child, picking up dog shit or staring out the window of her “madame’s” car in envy at those of us walking around with relatively few cares in the world. There is a common expression shared by oppressed peoples. Its one that screams of a yearning to spend time with family, swim in the sea, relax on a nice chair, meet friends, have money to purchase goods, travel, be free. And as someone concerned with social justice, it’s impossible to turn a blind eye to the abuse in Lebanon that is happening all around me.
Now, the big question: are Lebanese racists? Some Western journalists feel they’re in a position to say yes, but not this one. Surely there are many racist Lebanese, and it is a serious problem affecting the whole of society — nearly everyone refers to migrant domestic workers as “Sirlankiin” (Sri Lankans) regardless of what country they actually come from. But, for example, is the Ethiopian worker and her Lebanese employer an example of this racism? It’s hard to say. Before making generalizations and pointing the finger solely at Lebanese, I would take a step back and look at the question on a global scale — how many societies existing today don’t contain elements of racism? If these Ethiopian and other workers were to travel elsewhere (or stay in Ethiopia), would that solve the problem?
I thought about all of this before I heard the music sounding (seen in the video below) through the church doors and out into the street. I quickly put out my cigarette and ran back inside lugging my camera along to help me tell a story we don’t often hear.
