Ethiopian airliner crashes off Lebanon; 90 on board

CNN ^ | January 25, 2010

[Lorianne]

An Ethiopian airliner with 90 people aboard crashed into the Mediterranean Sea minutes after takeoff from Lebanon early Monday, authorities said.

The Lebanese army and the U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon were scouring the area off the Lebanese coast where the Boeing aircraft was thought to have gone down.

Rescue crews had not found the wreckage, said Ghazi El Aridi, Lebanon's minister of public works and transportation.

The plane left Rafik Hariri International Airport in Beirut at 2:27 a.m. and was headed to the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa.

It disappeared from radar a few minutes after takeoff, El Aridi said.

The Boeing 737-800 had 83 passengers: 54 Lebanese nationals, 22 Ethiopians, two British-Lebanese, an Iraqi, a Syrian, a Lebanese-Canadian, a Russian-Lebanese and a person from France, the minister said.

The plane also had seven crew members.

Authorities did not immediately know the cause of the crash.

[The Magical Mischief Tour]

737’s have a remarkable safety record and I would be very surprised if this one just “fell out of the sky”. Usually the need help to do that, in the for of our local, friendly jihadist...

Ethiopian Pilots carry mostly CAA/JAA UK or French issued pilots licenses so they can operate within JAA/European Airspace. They are fairly well trained initially and they complete their Boeing training either here in Seattle WA or at British Airways TC in England or Air France TC in Paris.

[UNGN]

737-800’s have had a bad month. This is at least the 7th incident involving an -800 since mid December. Most were takeoff, landing and taxiing errors.