Ethiopian jet's 2nd black box recovered

By Zeina Karam, AP Writer | Updated February 10, 2010

Ethiopian relatives of victims of the plane crash pay their last homage by travelling to the site in the suburbs of Beirut on February 1, 2010 REUTERS/Sharif Karim

An investigator points at the black box of an Ethiopian Airlines plane recovered off the coast of Lebanon February 7, 2010. REUTERS/Lebanese Army website/Handout

Ethiopian Airlines CEO Girma Wake at his office in Addis Ababa (AP Photo/Jon Black Jan 26, 2010)

Lebanese civil defense workers carry debris from the crash site on Saturday, Jan. 30, 2010. Lebanese army said it could take days to find and retrieve the black box, which is key to determining the cause of the crash. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)

Ethiopians in Beirut hold a memorial service for victims of Flight ET409 crash last week.

Editor's note - From day one, Lebanese officials have rushed to blame Ethiopian Airlines for the crash, even though they have never had any evidence whatsoever. The box - and not the crucial cockpit voice recorder (CVR) - was recovered today, which means nothing, but the Lebanese government has already made up its mind that 'pilot error' was behind the crash. Ethiopian Airlines has clearly an impending battle with Beirut so much even today's story is wrongly headlined: "2nd black box found," while the crucial CVR which records pilot communication with the air traffic controllers at Beirut Airport is still missing.

BEIRUT - Lebanese search teams retrieved on Wednesday the second black box from the passenger jet that crashed into the Mediterranean last month, while Ethiopian Airlines said it was still early to rule out any cause including sabotage.

The Boeing 737 crashed on Jan. 25, just minutes after takeoff from Beirut during a fierce thunderstorm. All 90 people on board died.

Within hours, Lebanese officials had said there was no indication of terrorism or sabotage on board Flight 409, which was headed for the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa.

However, Ethiopian Airlines said in a statement Wednesday it did not rule out the possibility of sabotage but that it was "too early to conclude the cause" of the crash.

The statement, posted on its Web site, said the investigation was still in its early stage, with the aircraft wreckage and cockpit voice recorder not yet retrieved for analysis.

Passenger jets carry two black boxes — a data flight recorder and a cockpit voice recorder.

The data flight recorder was retrieved among the plane's wreckage last Sunday at a depth of about 150 feet (45 meters) off the coastal village of Naameh just south of Beirut airport. It was flown to France for analysis on Monday.

The cockpit voice recorder was retrieved Wednesday in the same area, but Lebanese officials said it was missing a key piece.

The state-run National News Agency quoted Transportation Minister Ghazi Aridi as saying the army's marine commandos were currently searching for the missing piece near to where the recorder was discovered.

An army statement said only the base for the black box was found and not its memory recorder.

A senior security official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to give official statements to the media, said the second black box would also be flown to France.

The January crash prompted a search and rescue operation that included U.N. peacekeepers, Navy ship USS Ramage and a submarine. DNA samples were collected from relatives of the victims in Lebanon and Ethiopia to help identify bodies pulled out of the sea.

According to lists released after the crash, 23 Ethiopian passengers were on the plane as well as seven crew members. It was not clear if all the crew were Ethiopians. A British citizen, an Iraqi and a Syrian, as well as the wife of the French ambassador to Lebanon were also aboard the plane.

The black boxes are analyzed by BEA, a French agency that specializes in assisting with technical investigations of air crashes.

Pilot error behind Ethiopian jet crash

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Pilot error caused the crash of an Ethiopian Airlines plane off the coast of Lebanon last month which killed all 90 people on board, a source familiar with the investigation into the accident said on Tuesday.

"The investigation team has reached an early conclusion that it was pilot error, based on the information from the black box," the source told Reuters.

An investigation team involving Lebanese, French and Ethiopian officials had headed to France on Monday with the flight recorders, commonly known as "black boxes", for analysis.

The Boeing 737-800 plane crashed minutes after taking off from Beirut in stormy weather on Jan. 25, plunging in a ball of fire into the sea.

The pilot had failed to respond to the control tower's request to change direction even though he acknowledged their demands. The plane made a sharp turn before disappearing off the radar, the Lebanese transport minister said at the time.

The eight-year-old plane, carrying mostly Lebanese and Ethiopian passengers, last had a maintenance check on Dec. 25 and no technical problems had been found. It was bound for the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa.

Since retrieving the flight recorders from the Mediterranean on Sunday, Lebanese and international search teams have also located parts of the plane's fuselage, where most of the victims' bodies are believed trapped.

The bodies of at least 23 victims have been recovered so far. (Reporting by Nadim Ladki; writing by Yara Bayoumy; Editing by Charles Dick)

Ethiopian jet's black box flown to France

By Zaina Karam, AP

BEIRUT, Feb 9 (AP) -- Lebanese authorities say a black box recovered from the wreckage of the Ethiopian Airlines jet that crashed into the Mediterranean last month has been flown to France for analysis.

The Boeing 737 crashed Jan. 25 minutes after takeoff from Beirut, killing all 90 people on board.

An official at Beirut airport said a private jet owned by the Lebanese prime minister left for Paris Monday carrying the flight data recorder. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

Lebanese authorities have said the black box will be analyzed by BEA, a French agency that specializes in assisting with technical investigations of air crashes. The plane's other black box, the cockpit flight recorder, has not been recovered.

Black box recovered

By Bassem Mroue, AP

BEIRUT (Feb 7) -- Lebanese marine commandos on Sunday recovered the black box of the Ethiopian Airlines jet that crashed into the Mediterranean Sea last month, the Lebanese army said in a statement.

The Boeing 737-800 crashed Jan. 25, minutes after taking off from Beirut during a fierce thunderstorm. All 90 people on board are believed to have died.

The Lebanese military also said that eight more bodies were recovered Sunday, raising the number of bodies retrieved since the crash to 23.

Passenger jets carry two black boxes -- a data flight recorder and a cockpit voice recorder. They are commonly referred to as simply "the black box." The two are usually located in the rear of a plane, the area most likely to survive a crash intact.

Transportation Minister Ghazi Aridi told the local Al-Jadeed television that the box recovered Sunday was the data flight recorder. He had earlier said that the black box was located at a depth of 150 feet off the coast just south of Beirut airport.

"Now, the search is continuing for the second box," he said, referring to the cockpit voice recorder.

Video footage obtained by the Associated Press showed the orange-colored box placed in a container.

Analyzing data stored in the black box is critical to determining the cause of the crash.

A senior Lebanese army officer said the black box was "carefully" pulled out and taken Sunday to a Lebanese naval base in Beirut. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly to the media.

The Lebanese army officer said the black box would later be handed over to a technical committee investigating the crash. It includes Lebanese, Ethiopian and French investigators.

Earlier in the day, the officer said search crews have located the cockpit of the jet but there were no bodies inside it. Work was continuing to bring the cockpit to the surface, he said.

Ethiopian plane wreckage found in Syrian waters

BEIRUT, Feb 3 (Gulf Times) - Lebanese Public Works and Transportation Minister Ghazi Aridi said on Tuesday that Syrian officials have informed him that a part of an Ethiopian airliner which crashed off the Lebanese coast last week has been found in Syrian waters. The recovered wreckage will be transported to the Lebanese authorities, Aridi added.

On January 25, an Ethiopian airliner carrying 90 passengers, among them 54 Lebanese, crashed off the coast of Lebanon four minutes after take-off from Beirut International Airport. Usually the flight data and cockpit voice recorders send electronic signal to facilitate the recovery of the plane.

According to a Lebanese army source, signals were detected about 14KM off the coast, south of the airport at a depth of 1,300m, and it may take several days to recover the black boxes and analyse the data.

U.S. sub to help recover black boxes

BEIRUT, Feb 2 (AP) — A Lebanese army official said Monday a vessel carrying a submarine is on its way to help in the search for an Ethiopian Airlines plane that crashed last week south of Beirut.

The Boeing 737 crashed into the Mediterranean Sea on Jan. 25 just minutes after takeoff from Beirut in a fierce thunderstorm. All 90 people on board were presumed dead and the plane's black box and main body have not been found.

A U.S. Navy ship, the USS Ramage, has detected signals from the black box flight recorders at a depth of 4,265 feet (1,300 meters).

The army official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media, said he does not know when the vessels will arrive. Transportation Minister Ghazi Aridi has said the "submarine has left and should be here in the next few days."

Lebanon's government has formally asked the U.S.-based Odyssey Marine Explorations to send a submarine to help in retrieving the plane and the black box. Another ship for the company, Ocean Alert, has been scanning Lebanese waters since after the crash to try find the body of the plane and the black box.

The army official also said French investigators were working closely with the Lebanese navy. The wife of the France's ambassador to Lebanon was aboard the plane and a service was held for her at a Beirut church Sunday.

Rescue teams have recovered some bodies and pieces of the plane, but hope for finding any survivors has faded. There are conflicting numbers of how many bodies have been found, although at least 14 have been pulled out of the waters.

Also Monday an Iraqi man who died on the plane was buried in a Shiite Muslim cemetery south of Beirut, an Iraqi diplomat said. The 55-year-old Akram Jasim Mohammed was buried next to his son and daughter who died in a car accident in Beirut last year, the diplomat said on condition of anonymity because he was not being authorized to speak to the media about the matter.

Search crews hunt for black boxes

BEIRUT, Jan 31 (AFP) - Salvage teams turned over debris to the Lebanese army, as they scoured the seabed for the black boxes of an Ethiopian airliner that crashed off Beirut, presumably killing 90 people.

Among the remains of the wreck handed over were personal effects and plane seats recovered from the around the area where the Boeing 737-800 crashed into the sea soon after takeoff during a raging thunderstorm on Monday.

Lebanon said the Odyssey Explorer, a vessel operated by a private US firm that specialises in underwater recovery, would be sent in as soon as the exact location of the black boxes was determined.

The cabinet had 'asked that the Odyssey Explorer ... be sent to intervene as soon as the block boxes are located,' Information Minister Tarek Mitri said.

Searchers on Wednesday picked up the signals of the black boxes from the Ethiopian Airlines jet, and have been trying to pinpoint their exact location ever since.

Mitri had said the flight data and cockpit voice recorders, which are known as the black boxes and emit an electronic signal to facilitate recovery, were thought to be 14 kilometres off the coast at a depth of 1,500 metres.

But an army spokesman said the exact location of the black boxes was yet to be pinpointed.

'The search still hasn't uncovered anything,' the spokesman told AFP.

'The decision is to continue searching,' he said, adding rescuers were 'following the signals emitted by the black boxes'.

Lebanese Transport Minister Ghazi Aridi said on Friday that two-thirds of the area where the black boxes were thought to be lying had been searched.

The Ocean Alert, another vessel operated by the same US company that owns the Odyssey Explorer and specialises in undersea recovery, has been sweeping the area in which the signals were detected.

Once the boxes were retrieved, they would be sent to a decoding centre overseas, possibly in France, sources close to the investigation have told Agence France-Presse.

Ethiopian Airlines Flight 409 was bound for Addis Ababa when it went down early on Monday morning.

All 83 passengers and seven crew are presumed dead. Most of those on board were Ethiopians and Lebanese.

Only 14 bodies, including those of two toddlers, and body parts have been found so far.

Rescue officials have said a number of the victims' remains may still be strapped to their seats underwater.

There were conflicting reports as to whether the jet exploded while airborne 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.