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Searchers have located the black boxes from the crashed Ethiopian plane, Public Works and Transportation Minister Ghazi Aridi told AFP on Saturday. "The boxes have been found under the rear part of the fuselage," which was found on Saturday morning, the minister said. "Lebanese army divers have gone down to retrieve them, but this operation will take time," he added. Aridi spoke during a press conference on Saturday, saying that Syrian Public and Transportation Minister Makram Obeid informed him that additional parts of the plane were found off the coast of Latakia in Syria. According to Aridi, the parts would...

Racism in Lebanon? Commenters Respond to Ethiopian Airline 409 Tragedy January 30, 2010 Joshua Hersh Emotions have run hot in the aftermath of the Ethiopian Airlines crash, and this has resulted in some visceral exchanges between Ethiopians and Lebanese. If it wasn’t already evident, this episode has made clear that there is a great deal of anger on both sides, but especially on behalf of Ethiopians, who feel deeply mistreated and abused by the Lebanese. Rather than opine more on this, I thought I’d just pull a few of the more evocative comments I received from my earlier blog post...

AN AIRCRAFT that crashed minutes after taking off in a thunderstorm, killing all 90 people on board, is thought to have been struck by lightning. The Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 737-800 had just left Beirut in Lebanon for the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa when it burst into a "ball of fire" and plunged into the Mediterranean. There were two Britons among the 83 passengers on board. One of them was named as haulage firm owner Afif Krisht, 56, who had dual British-Lebanese nationality, and whose former wife lives in Plymouth. Flight ET-409 crashed into the sea two miles offshore. It disappeared...

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....

BEIRUT, Jan 25 (Reuters) - Rescue workers have located the crash site of an Ethiopian Airlines plane that went down just off the Lebanese coast on Monday, Lebanon's Transport Minister Ghazi al-Aridi said. "(The crash) site has been identified three-and-a-half km (two miles) west of the (coastal) village of Na'ameh," Aridi told reporters at Beirut international airport. He said search and rescue operations were under way but refused to give any further details. He also said it was too early to say what caused the crash but confirmed the plane took off from Beirut international airport in stormy weather

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An Ethiopian Airliner with 92 passengers and crew on board has crashed into the Mediterranean Sea shortly after takeoff from Beirut airport in Lebanon. Aviation sources said flight 409 was heading for the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa when it crashed at 2:30 a.m. (1230 GMT) on Monday. According to Lebanon's Transport Minister Ghazi Aridi, the Boeing 737-800 disappeared from radar screens only five minutes after takeoff amid heavy rains and storms, and crashed into the sea about 12km (7 miles) south of the Rafiq Hariri airport. Witnesses who live near the coast have reported seeing a ball of fire as...