(BBC) — The “black box” flight recorders from a passenger jet which crashed off the coast of Lebanon two days ago have been found, officials say.
A search team located the recorders from the Ethiopian Airlines flight just over 1.3km (0.8 miles) underwater, 10km west of the capital, Beirut.
The search team is now trying to retrieve them, Lebanese security officials said.
All 90 people on board the flight are presumed dead following the crash.
At least 24 bodies have been pulled from the sea so far.
Ethiopian Airlines Flight 409, bound for Addis Ababa, crashed into the Mediterranean minutes after take-off from Beirut at 0237 (0037 GMT) during a severe thunderstorm on Monday.
Witnesses said they saw the plane plummet into the sea in flames.
The international search operation has included Lebanese navy troops and the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (Unifil) as well as US navy destroyer USS Ramage and a civilian vessel from Cyprus with sonar equipment.
The cause of the crash is not yet known, however Lebanese officials have said the jet did not fly in the direction instructed by the Beirut control tower.
The officials said the pilot had been asked to correct his course, but turned in the opposite direction.
Seven crew and 83 passengers were on board the Boeing 737-800. Most were Lebanese or Ethiopian.
Marla Pietton, the wife of the French ambassador in Beirut, was among those on board.
Ethiopian Airlines sources have revealed that the captain who was originally assigned to fly Ethiopian Airlines Flight 409 was not on board when the plane crashed into the Mediterranean Sea.
According to Ethiopian Review sources, Captain Amaha Fisseha went to Mekelle to attend a wedding, and in his place another pilot, Captain Habtamu Benti, with Co-pilot Alula Tamrat, flew the ill-fated plane.
[Correction: It was reported yesterday that Captain Amaha called in sick.]
AP and other news agencies are reporting that the pilot made a ‘strange turn’ after take off and ignored instructions from flight controllers on the ground, Lebanon’s transportation minister said Tuesday.
The tower “asked him to correct his path but he did a very fast and strange turn before disappearing completely from the radar,” Transportation Minister Ghazi Aridi told The Associated Press.
The Boeing 737-800 had taken off from Beirut airport Monday during thunderstorms and lightning. It went down 3½ kilometres off the Lebanese coast at roughly 2:30 a.m. local time, only minutes after takeoff en route to Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital.
All 90 people, including a Canadian passenger, are feared dead. Search-and-rescue teams have so far recovered more than 20 bodies and are looking for the plane’s black box and flight data recorder.
“Nobody is saying the pilot is to blame for not heeding orders,” Aridi said, adding: “There could have been many reasons for what happened.…Only the black box can tell.”
It is not clear why the pilot did not correct his flight path or whether he could. The Boeing 737 is also equipped with its own onboard weather radar, which the pilot may have used to avoid flying into storms.
The Lebanese army also said the plane was on fire shortly after takeoff. A defence official said some witnesses reported the plane broke up into three pieces. Officials have ruled out terrorism as a cause of the crash, without elaborating.
Beirut air traffic control was guiding the Ethiopian flight through the thunderstorms for the first two to three minutes of its flight, an aviation analyst familiar with the investigation told The Associated Press.
The official said this was standard procedure by Lebanese controllers to assist airliners leaving the airport in bad weather.
Ethiopian Airlines said the pilot had more than 20 years of experience.
(AccuWeather) — Frequent lightning was in the area of Monday morning’s Ethiopian Airlines Flight 409 crash into the Mediterranean Sea, according to data compiled by AccuWeather.com.
“A significant bolt was detected at 2:37 a.m., local time, 10 miles South of the Beirut Airport and 2.5 miles west of the coastal town of Na’ameh,” said AccuWeather.com Expert Senior Meteorologist Henry Margusity.
There were rain showers accompanied by a considerable amount of thunder and wind in the vicinity of Beirut at the time of the crash. Such weather is very conducive to lightning strikes.
“Turbulent weather, such as the thunderstorms that were in the area during the time of the crash, allows the separation of charges, which causes lightning to occur,” said AccuWeather.com meteorologist Mike Pigott.
The strike was in line with the runway, and occurred shortly after the plane left Beirut at 2:30 a.m.
It appears that this bolt was directly in the flight path of the plane, which was headed to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
The Boeing 737-800 had approximately 90 people aboard. Several bodies have been recovered, and no survivors have been reported.
Lebanon’s Transportation Minister Ghazi Aridi told the Associated Press that the pilot made “a very fast and strange turn before disappearing completely from the radar.” It is unclear as to why that happened, but officials have ruled out terrorism.
According to the World Wide Lightning Location Network out of the University of Washington, data showed severe lightning in the Lebanon area hours within the time of the crash.
“Eight WWLLN sensors detected this particular stroke, which indicates the stroke was stronger than average,” said Professor Robert Holzworth, Director of the World Wide Lightning Location Network.
A relative of one of the passengers commented that the plane should have been delayed at take off due to bad weather.
“They should have delayed the flight for an hour or two to protect the passengers. There had been strong lightning bolts and we hear that lightning strikes planes especially during take offs.”
Commercial jets are equipped with special lightning protection, including aircraft skins made of electricity-conducive aluminum, Fuel tanks and any piping carrying fuel are also protected by a skin that is thick enough to withstand sparking.
According to the Scientific American, it is estimated that each airplane in the U.S. commercial fleet is stuck by lightning more than once each year.
(Story by AccuWeather.com’s Carly Porter and Gina Cherundolo, with content contributed by Professor Robert Holzworth, Director of the World Wide Lightning Location Network. wwlln.net.)
The crew of an Ethiopian airliner that crashed off Lebanon on Monday apparently flew into violent storms after failing to follow controllers’ instructions to avoid them, it emerged today.
“A traffic control recording shows that the tower told the pilot to turn to avoid the storm, but the plane went in the opposite direction,” Elias Murr, the Lebanese Defence Minister, said. “We do not know what happened or whether it was beyond the pilot’s control.”
All 90 on board the Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 737 died when the aircraft hit the Mediterranean shortly after taking off from Beirut airport at 2am. Initial reports talked of a possible mid-air explosion and a possible engine fire before the aircraft took off, but the nearby thunderstorms were seen as a more likely explanation.
Violent cumulonimbus, or thunder, clouds can lead to the destruction of even the biggest aircraft. Airliners fly around them, guided by their own weather radar and sometimes by ground controllers as well.
When flight ET409 took off, controllers gave it vectors — compass headings — to steer around a line of powerful storms that crossed its path over the Mediterranean. Such instructions from departure control are common in the first minutes of flight when bad weather is near by.
Flight ET409 disappeared from radar after five minutes of flight after apparently flying straight into the line of storms.
Ghazi Aridi, the Lebanese Transport Minister, said that the pilot at the controls flew in the opposite direction to that advised by the controllers. They “asked him to correct his path but he did a very fast and strange turn before disappearing completely from the radar,” he said.
There was no indication over what caused the crew to follow the wrong heading.
Severe weather has been blamed for many airliners disasters, most recently the crash of a Kenyan Airways Boeing 737 in Cameroon in 2007.
A line of violent thunderstorms is also believed to have been a major factor in the crash of Air France flight 447 that came down off Brazil last June 1. The causes have not yet been determined, but the sequence that led to the crash began when the Airbus A330 flew into violent storm cells, then, in heavy turbulence and rain, its speed-reading probes were blocked by water or ice.
The explosive vertical columns of wind in the heart of mature cumulonimbus clouds can quickly send aircraft out of control and even rip off their wings and tails. There is speculation among airline pilots today that the pilots of the Ethiopian Boeing may have lost control in such violent weather.
Without correct recovery by the pilots, this could have led to a stall or spin and a crash, or even a mid-air break-up. The aircraft was only at about 8,000ft altitude as it climbed away from Beirut. This would have given the crew very little time to regain control.
ADDIS ABABA, ETHIOPIA — China’s minister for commerce says trade with Ethiopia will reach $3 billion by 2015
ASK AN Addis Ababa taxi driver to take you to Ethio-China Friendship Road and he might just scratch his head.
The renaming of Wollo Sefer, one of the Ethiopian capital’s main thoroughfares, in tribute to the country’s burgeoning ties with Beijing might be obvious from the new street signs but it has yet to filter down to everyday use.
The road is not the only marker of China’s growing engagement with Ethiopia.
Addis Ababa’s ultramodern airport was built by the Chinese, as was the city’s ring road and flyover.
An extensive renovation of the African Union headquarters in downtown Addis is being financed by the Chinese to the tune of more than $100 million (€71 million).
Across the city, a Chinese government-built school, designed to cater for up to 3,000 students, offers Mandarin classes as part of its curriculum.
Scores of Ethiopians have been given scholarships to study subjects including engineering and architecture in China.
The Chinese restaurants and clinics advertising acupuncture and traditional herbal remedies that have become part of the landscape in almost every African city in recent years are here too. According to local media, some 1,000 Chinese companies operate in Ethiopia.
Besuited Chinese businessmen can be seen discussing deals in Addis hotel lobbies, while engineers and others fresh from working on road and telecommunications projects or building power stations and water supply systems haggle for souvenirs in the city’s sprawling Merkato before flying home to Beijing.
In some Ethiopian towns and villages, it is not uncommon for foreigners to find themselves being greeted by children yelling “China, China”.
Earlier this month Chen Deming, China’s minister for commerce, was in town predicting that trade volume between the two countries will reach $3 billion by 2015. Chinese investment in Ethiopia amounted to just under $1 billion last year, and there is much talk of future investment in agricultural projects.
“China and Ethiopia have been mutually supportive on the political front and closely co-operating on the economic front,” Chen said, going on to use the stock expression Chinese officials trot out when discussing relations with African states: “It is fair to regard the Sino-Ethiopian friendship as an all-weather one.”
China’s new engagement with Africa has played out very differently across the continent, helping revitalise moribund economies in some countries, while breeding resentment elsewhere due to support for unsavoury regimes, poor work practices and threatened local industries.
There have been a few cautionary tales for the Chinese along the way. In 2007, for example, nine Chinese oil workers were killed and seven briefly kidnapped in the restive Ogaden area of eastern Ethiopia.
Ethiopian prime minister genocidal dictator Meles Zenawi says African states must be prudent in setting the parameters of the relationship.
“The Chinese interest in Ethiopia has been nothing short of a godsend,” he tells The Irish Times.
“We have benefited massively from it, but like everything else it is capable of becoming a nightmare . . . It is up to the host countries as to how they use the available resources from the Chinese in the best possible manner. Those who do will benefit, those who don’t may not benefit as perhaps they ought to.”
China’s assistance in building infrastructure and its investment in manufacturing has been invaluable for Ethiopia, Meles says.
“We need investment from any quarter we can get it. The Chinese have been more aggressive in investing in Ethiopia than many others and our hope is that Chinese investment will entice not only additional Chinese investment but also investment from other countries.”
But, as in every African country wooing Beijing, there is debate over who stands to gain. A 2008 study by an economist at Addis Ababa University noted that while Ethiopian consumers will benefit from cheap Chinese imports, small local firms, particularly in the clothing and footwear sectors, will lose out.
Opposition figures, like many of their counterparts elsewhere in Africa, mutter darkly about deals agreed behind closed doors, and speculate on the motives of both the government and Beijing.
One told me he suspects that the Meles regime sees China’s overtures as an opportunity to shore up support where it matters on the world stage.
Whatever way the debate shifts, however, the one thing everyone seems to agree on is that the Chinese are here to stay.
Stormy weather or sabotage are being cited in the aviation world as possible factors in the crash of Ethiopian Airlines flight 409 off Beirut.
There is no evidence yet to suggest what caused the modern Boeing 737-800 airliner to hit the Mediterranean minutes after take-off. But attention focused on powerful thunder storms in the area and the possibility that an explosion could have caused the sudden end to the flight.
The crew were talking to the area “departure control” which was handling their flight when their transmissions stopped. This could mean that the aircraft suddenly broke up or that the crew were too busy handling an emergency to transmit a message.
The airport was under heavy rain and a line of thunderstorms were positioned off the coast, along the route of the Boeing as it climbed out of Beirut. The pilots would normally avoid the violent “cells” in the cumulonimbus thunder clouds, but these have brought down airliners in the past.
Most recently, in May 2007, a Kenyan Airways Boeing 737 crashed after a night take off in thunderstorms and heavy rain from Douala, Cameroon, killing all 114 on board. The cause of the crash has still not been determined, but the bad weather is thought by experts to have played a big role.
The explosive turbulence inside a cumulonimbus can upset even the biggest airliners. Such storms were an element in the crash last June 1 of Air France flight 447 off Brazil, according to the preliminary findings.
Lightning strikes are not normally a danger to airliners but dense rain can occasionally cause jet engines to “flame out” and stop. In this case, the crew would normally report their predicament to controllers, telling them that they were gliding and attempting to restart.
It is too early to rule out sabotage, as the Lebanese Government did, unless it holds information that it has not released.
If the pilots did not reported any problem, an explosive or other foul play cannot be excluded, aviation experts said. Speculation over possible sabotage or terrorism is natural, given Beirut’s position in the Middle East and Ethiopia’s support for the government of Somalia in its conflict with Islamist insurgents.
Eye-witness reports of a mid-air explosion should not be taken at face value. Such reports are common whenever a night-time crash is witnessed. The usual reason is the much higher speed of light than sound. The witness sees the fire of a distant crash before the noise, giving the false impression of preceding it.
Simple pilot error has sometimes caused airliners to crash after night take-off.
In January 2004, an Egyptian Boeing 737 hit the Red Sea shortly after taking off from Sharm el-Sheikh, killing all the 148 aboard, most of them French tourists. It was found that the automatic pilot was not connected and the pilots, flying in pitch dark, let the aircraft fly almost on to its back before they lost control.
Ethiopian Airlines is viewed as one of the best on the African continent and the Boeing 737 is one of the world’s most reliable aircraft. The last fatal incident involving the airline was in November 1996. A hijacked Boeing 767 crashed-landed off the Comoros Islands after running out of fuel. Fifty of the 175 people aboard survived.
The Boeing 737 has been manufactured since 1967 with over 6,000 aircraft delivered. On average there are 1,250 737s airborne at any given time.
