ETHOPIAN Airlines : Vol ET409 ; Liban ( juste après décollage)

BEYROUTH, 25 jan 2010 (AFP)Un Boeing 737 d'Ethiopian Airlines avec 9O personnes à bord s'est écrasé lundi matin en mer Méditerranée au large du Liban peu après son décollage de Beyrouth, a déclaré le ministre libanais du Transport, Ghazi Aridi.

2010 AFP

An [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien] aircraft that took off from Beirut airport has crashed into the Mediterranean Sea with 90 people on board, confirms an airline spokesman.
"The incident has happened, and we have dispatched an investigation team to Beirut. We don't have clear information besides that at the moment," he adds
Media reports quoting the Lebanese transport minister say the crash site has been identified, and search and rescue operations are going there. No survivors have been found yet, add the reports.
Flight ET409 reportedly taken off in stormy weather, say the reports,
Bound for the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa, the aircraft lost contact with Lebanese air controllers shortly after take-off from Beirut Rafic Hariri International Airport at 02:35hr, says the airline.
Ethiopian operates a daily flight between Beirut and Addis Ababa with [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien]-800 aircraft.
The ill-fated aircraft was carrying 82 passengers and eight Ethiopian crew members, says the airline.
"A team is already working on gathering all pertinent information we will release further information as further updates are received," says Ethiopian.

An Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 737-800 passenger plane, registered ET-ANB, was destroyed when it crashed into the sea, shortly after takeoff from Beirut International Airport (BEY), Lebanon.

At least 24 bodies have been pulled from the sea.

Rescuers are continuing to search for bodies and wreckage, but officials say it is very unlikely that any of the 90 people on board will be found alive.

Ethiopian flight ET409 took off at 02:35 on a flight to Addis Ababa-Bole Airport (ADD), Ethiopia.

It crashed into the sea, about 6 km past the end of runway 21, some 3,5 km offshore from the village of Naameh.

Lebanese air traffic control lost contract with the crashed [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien]-800 at 9,000ft following its departure from Beirut today.
The director of Lebanon's air navigation department, Khaled Chamieh, tells Air Transport Intelligence that the aircraft departed runway 21 on a service to Addis Ababa.
Weather data shows the presence of cumulonimbus clouds and thunderstorm activity, but Chamieh says that the jet climbed to 9,000ft before contact was lost.
"The aircraft was called several times but it did not respond," he says, adding that the investigation is underway and no further information is available.
Ethiopian Airlines has ended confusion over the identity of the aircraft, confirming it was an eight-year old model - serial number 29935, registered ET-ANB - leased from CIT.

The aircraft underwent maintenance on 25 December at the airline's facilities, says the carrier, and was "declared safe and fit to fly".
Ethiopian adds that the pilot had over 20 years' experience on various types across the carrier's network.
"A team of experts from Ethiopian has arrived in Beirut and has reported that the Lebanese Government and its army, together with the United Nations security forces in Beirut, are aggressively engaged in the search efforts for survivors at the accident scene," says the carrier.
Twenty-five victims have been recovered. Ninety passengers and crew were on board the flight, ET409.

Ethiopian pilot ignored control tower before crash: minister

BEIRUT, Jan 25, 2010 (AFP)An Ethiopian airliner that crashed into the sea off Lebanon on Monday failed to follow instructions from a flight control tower for unknown reasons, Lebanon's defence minister said.

2010 AFP

Members of the US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) are lending support to the government of Lebanon in its investigation of the crash of an [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien]-800 shortly after takeoff from Beirut airport on 25 January.
The aircraft crashed into the Mediterranean Sea shortly after takeoff as contact with the aircraft was lost at 9,000ft following its departure from runway 21. The aircraft was enroute to Addis Ababa.
NTSB Chairman Deborah Hersman has designated senior investigator Dennis Jones as the USA's accredited representative in the investigation. His team will also include technical advisors from the FAA and [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien].
Ethiopian has said the aircraft underwent maintenance on 25 December, and was declared safe to fly.

Preliminary information about the final few minutes of yesterday's ill-fated Ethiopian Airlines flight out of Beirut indicates that the aircraft was struggling to comply with air traffic control instructions to change heading.
The Boeing 737-800, bound for Addis Ababa as flight ET409, departed towards the south from Beirut's runway 21 in darkness, but initial information suggests that the jet turned north, and was cleared to climb to a minimum crossing altitude to transit through Syrian airspace.

An air traffic control source familiar with the event tells Air Transport Intelligence that an early exchange with Beirut centre focused on navigating relative to the VOR beacon identified as CAK, which lies on the Lebanese coast north of Beirut.
But he says that air traffic control needed to ensure separation between ET409 and two aircraft which were on approach to Beirut's runway 16 at the time.

In order to maintain separation, he says, ET409 was instructed to turn left onto a heading of 270° but the crew apparently failed to comply.
"Instead it turned left, further," says the source, adding that - as the heading approached 140° - controllers became alarmed that the aircraft was turning to face high terrain.
Controllers tried ordering the aircraft to turn right, warning the crew of the mountainous area, but the source says that radar contact was lost with the jet shortly afterwards. It came down off the Lebanese coast south of Beirut.

Meteorological data confirms the presence of thunderstorm activity but there is no immediate evidence that the conditions directly led to the loss of the aircraft.

Investigators have yet to retrieve either the cockpit-voice or flight-data recorder. The recovery effort has been hampered by poor weather.

But Ethiopian Airlines says that a specialised vessel is being brought in to assist, adding: "This, we believe, will facilitate an earlier recovery of the [flight recorders]. It will also help to find and lift the main fuselage of the aircraft. So far, part of the wreckage and some life rafts have been recovered from the area."
Ninety passengers and crew were on board the jet but rescue teams have not found any survivors.

The team of experts from the United Kingdom and a U.S. Navy carrier and special purpose vessel have arrived in Lebanon to help in the search effort for the Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 737-800 that crashed off the coast of Beirut with 90 people aboard Sunday.

"This we believe will facilitate an earlier recovery of the black box and data voice recorder," Ethiopian [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien] of the U.S. Navy aid. "It will also help to find and lift the main fuselage of the aircraft. So far, part of the wreckage and some life rafts has been recovered from the area."
The search and rescue work was suspended due to bad weather Monday night, but resumed Tuesday, Ethiopian said. See new images of the search and pieces of the jet that have been found in our [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien], which starts with the most-recent pictures.

Ethiopian also reported that the pilot of flight ET409 "was a career flight professional with over 20 years of experience flying various aircraft over the expanded network of the airline" and: "The aircraft B737-800 with registration number ET-ANB involved in the accident has had its regular maintenance service as recently as December 25, 2009 at the maintenance facilities of the National carrier and was declared safe and fit to fly."
The U.K. Guardian newspaper [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien] Lebanon's transport minister, Ghazi Aridi, saying Tuesday that the pilot of the jet flew in the opposite direction from the path recommended by the control tower after taking off from Beirut in a storm.
"They asked him to correct his path but he did a very fast and strange turn before disappearing completely from the radar," Aridi said in the story.

Witnesses have said the plane was on fire shortly after takeoff. A Lebanese defense official told the Guardian that witnesses reported that the plane broke up into three pieces. No survivors had been found.

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

He said: "One wouldn't have thought that a nasty squall in and of itself would be the prime cause of an accident like this."

He added 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.

Sidney Dekker, a professor of flight safety at the School of Aviation at Lund University in Sweden, said if reports of an engine fire proved to be correct, the accident could have resulted from a loss of control at a relatively low altitude, where it would have been difficult to recover.

Prof Dekker, who is also a Boeing 737 pilot, said the plane's engines were overpowered to fulfil performance requirements in the event of the loss of an engine at take-off. He said this tended to turn the aircraft towards the dead engine.

He said poor visibility in low cloud, combined with high winds, may have contributed to the problem faced by the pilots trying to regain control.

The last Ethiopian Airlines crash was in 1996, when a Boeing 767 ran out of fuel after being hijacked, and 123 of the 175 people on board were killed when it ditched in the sea.

In a previous incident in 1988, 31 of 104 people on board a Boeing 737 were killed when it crash-landed while returning to Bahar Dar in Ethiopia after striking a flock of pigeons following take-off.

Appartenant à l'aéronautique navale française, un avion de patrouille maritime Atlantique 2 a participé aux recherches consécutives au crash d'un Boeing 737 d'Ethiopian Airlines.

L'appareil, qui avait décollé de l'aéroport de Beyrouth, s'est abîmé en mer lundi, avec 90 personnes à bord.

Immédiatement, un important dispositif de recherche a été déployé, comprenant notamment des éléments de l'armée libanaise, ainsi que la composante navale de la FINUL (Force Intérimaire des Nations Unies au Liban).

Présent à Paphos (Chypres) dans le cadre d'une autre mission, un Atlantique 2 de la flottille 23F a été chargé de coordonner les moyens déployés.

Malheureusement, aucun survivant n'a été retrouvé.

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BEYROUTH, 7 fév 2010 (AFP)

La marine libanaise a récupéré l'une des deux boîtes noires de l'avion d'Ethiopian Airlines qui s'est abîmé le 25 janvier au large du Liban avec 90 personnes à bord, a annoncé dimanche l'armée.

2010 AFP


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BEIRUT, Feb 9, 2010 (AFP)

An Ethiopian jet which crashed off Lebanon's coast last month exploded after take-off, Lebanon's health minister said on
Tuesday in the first such official comment since the mysterious crash.

2010 AFP

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Part of the Honeywell recorder was recovered from the crash site, off the Lebanese coast, last week.

But a cylindrical memory unit from the device was missing.

The Lebanese defence ministry states today that "intensive efforts" by military personnel and divers have resulted in this additional section being found.

The bodies of all 83 passengers and seven crew on the Ethiopian Airlines jet that crashed shortly after takeoff from Beirut last month have been recovered and identified, the airline said Tuesday.

2010 AFP