A fierce storm appears to have caused the crash of an Ethiopian Airlines jet that plunged in a ball of fire into the sea with 90 people on board, Lebanese Defense Minister Elias Murr said yesterday.
“Bad weather was apparently the cause of the crash,” Murr told reporters.
“We have ruled out foul play so far,” he said, noting that soldiers combing the Lebanese shoreline had recovered pieces of the plane.
“When there is an explosion [on board an airplane] nothing is usually left,” he said.
Ethiopian Airlines Flight 409 went down in flames off Lebanon’s coast shortly after takeoff from Beirut airport at 2.30am. There were no reports of survivors.
“We will continue search operations in the hope of finding survivors,” Murr said, adding that no deadline had been set.
“We are seeking to recover the black box and the recording between the control tower and the pilot to determine what happened,” Murr said.
He said Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri would chair an emergency ministerial meeting later yesterday to assess the situation.
Murr said that a US naval ship that specializes in rescue operations was expected to arrive at the site of the crash by 4pm with advanced equipment and divers on board.
“This should help speed up the search efforts during the night,” the minister said.
“As you know, within 90 minutes night will fall and the rescue operation will become more difficult,” he said.
“I hope that during the night ... we will have recovered all the passengers, whether dead or alive,” Murr said.
A Lebanese security official said that by early afternoon at least 24 bodies had been pulled from the sea, including that of a child. One rescue official said that some of the bodies recovered were dismembered while another said bodies were floating in the water.
The health ministry said it had set up a crisis unit in a bid to identify the victims trough DNA tests or items of jewelry found on their persons.
Debris from the Boeing 737, which was headed to the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa, as well as luggage and personal belongings could be seen washing up on the shoreline south of the capital.
One employee of a gas station near the site of the crash said he heard an explosion and saw “a huge ball of fire” as the plane crashed.
Another witness said: “It was like the whole sea lit up.”
Lebanese Transport Minister Ghazi Aridi said the aircraft lost contact with the airport control tower shortly after takeoff and crashed into the Mediterranean off the coastal town of Naameh, south of the airport.
“The control tower was assisting the pilot of the plane on takeoff and suddenly lost contact for no known reason,” Aridi told reporters.
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