Ethiopian Airliner believed to have crashed.

[Kip Powick]

(CNN) -- An Ethiopian airliner with 92 people on board disappeared from radar and is believed to have crashed shortly after takeoff from Beirut, Lebanon, early Monday, Lebanon's National News Agency reported.

The Boeing aircraft was en route to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, when it disappeared from radar 30 minutes after takeoff from Rafik Hariri International Airport in Beirut, NNA reported. The plane is believed to have been over water at the time of its disappearance, the news agency said.

[zipped]

More from the BBC.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8478060.stm

[Kip Powick]

BEIRUT—All 90 people aboard an Ethiopian Airlines plane were feared dead after it plunged into the Mediterranean, minutes after taking off from Beirut in a thunderstorm on Monday.

Flight ET409, a Boeing 737-800, heading for Addis Ababa, disappeared off the radar some five minutes after taking off at 2:37 a.m. local time.

The Lebanese army said the plane had broken up in the air before plummeting into rough seas. Witnesses described the impact as a “flash that lit up the whole sea” and a “ball of fire”.

Lebanese President Michel Suleiman said he did not think the plane had been brought down deliberately, emphasizing “a sabotage attack is unlikely”.

Defence Minister Elias el-Murr also said there was no evidence of a terrorist attack and that weather was “in principle” to blame for the crash.

Ethiopian Airlines CEO Girma Wake said he had spoken with Lebanese authorities who had no word of survivors.

Eighty-three passengers — including one Canadian — and seven crew were on the flight, Lebanese Transport Minister Ghazi al-Aridi said at the airport.

Twenty-four bodies, including those of two toddlers, have so far been recovered. At least six bodies were of Ethiopian origin, officials said. Some of the bodies were so unrecognisable from the impact of the crash that DNA testing would be needed to identify them.

The remains of mangled aircraft seats and luggage washed up on the shore south of Beirut where the airport’s main runway is located. Lebanese army patrol boats, helicopters and divers searched an area off Na’ameh, 10 kilometres south of the capital.

Fifty-four of those on board were Lebanese, 22 were Ethiopian, two were British and there were also Canadian, Russian, French, Iraqi, Syrian, and Turkish nationals.

Marla Pietton, wife of the French ambassador to Lebanon Denis Pietton, was on the plane, the French embassy said.

INVESTIGATION TEAM

The Lebanese government declared a day of mourning. Prime Minister Saad al-Hariri visited the airport to meet distraught relatives waiting for news of survivors, some of whom were angry that the plane was allowed to take off in bad weather.

“They should have delayed the flight for an hour or two to protect the passengers. There had been strong lightning bolts and we hear that lightning strikes at planes especially during take-offs,” a relative of one of the passengers told a local television station.

Girma said he did not think the crew would have taken off in dangerous weather conditions.

“There was bad weather. How bad it is, I will not be able to say. But, from what I see, probably it was manageable weather otherwise the crew would not have taken off,” he told reporters in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa.

A 14-strong investigation team from Ethiopia including Ethiopian Airlines officials arrived by plane in Beirut to help probe the causes of the crash.

Boeing said it was coordinating with the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board to assist Lebanese authorities in the investigation.

U.N. peacekeepers in Lebanon, Cypriot police, the British military stationed in Cyprus and the U.S. navy provided helicopters, ships and divers to aid search and rescue.

State-owned Ethiopian Airlines has positioned itself as a major player in international air traffic in Africa and has recently expanded its Asian network.

Girma said the plane, built in 2002, last underwent a maintenance check on Dec. 25 and no technical problems were found. The plane had been leased from a division of U.S. financing company CIT Group.

Ethiopian airlines has regular flights to Lebanon, catering for business clients and the thousands of Ethiopians who work there as domestic helpers. Lebanese aviation sources said some of the passengers had been en route to Angola and other African countries.

Last Friday the airline announced an order for 10 of Boeing’s Next-Generation 737-800s for a total price of $767 million.

The last incident involving Ethiopian Airlines was in Nov. 1996 when 125 of the 175 passengers and crew died after a hijacked Boeing 767 crashed off the Comoros Islands.

The crash is the fifth incident involving the loss of a Boeing 737-800, according to the Flight Safety Foundation.

[conehead]

The Lebanese army said the plane had broken up in the air before plummeting into rough seas.

I am sceptical of this...

[Kip Powick]

My "pure speculation"

Bad weather

Thunderstorms

Severe Turb

Upset

unable to recover??

[Seeker]

Well, since we're just throwing stuff out there, I'm going to go with microburst/decreasing performance windshear on the departure path.

[RGT]

http://www.wunderground.com/history/airpor...eq_statename=NA

...is that the correct airport?

[Kip Powick]

This is a video of the reported explosion of the B737 shortly after it took off.

The tape is played two times and the explosion can be seen in the top right hand corner as the aircraft traverses from Right to left and happens at 2:30:38

I would assume the bright flashes on the ground is lightening from the storm

Is that an explosion??? I sure don't know.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OCe-_aVAYS4

[Mitch Cronin]

Looked like a compressor stall maybe. Birds? Ice? Bum engine?

[Moon The Loon]

Sure couldn't tell much from that. Lotsa heavy lightening though..

[Mitch Cronin]

Agreed. ...still, from the size of the flash, I'd go with an engine burp of some kind.

[Pivot]

It is so brief a flash that I would say that was a strobe.

[Seeker]

Just curious, some reports are saying that the aircraft achieved an altitude of 4000 ft, how long after rotation does that take ifor a 737-800 on average and how far out would that have put the aircraft? Would there have been time for pilots to report a problem if they had attained that altitude and it was a normal mechanical problem rather than a complete breakup?

I don't fly a 737 but I'd guess about 2.5-3 minutes and 8-10 miles out.

[Kip Powick]

Guessing here..but the -200 would be about 2 minutes and maybe 5-6 miles...if there were no restrictions...depends on aircraft weight with climb rate etc.

I'm sure a WJ pilot will have more accurate numbers.......soon

[Seeker]

Guessing here..but the -200 would be about 2 minutes and maybe 5-6 miles...if there were no restrictions...depends on aircraft weight with climb rate etc.

I'm sure a WJ pilot will have more accurate numbers.......soon

I scaled it back a bit based on the fact that they were going "long-haul".

[Ex 9A Guy]

Depending on the departure (VNAP) profile the distance would vary. The great circle distance between Beruit and Addis Ababa is 1497NM this is equivilant to YYC to YYZ a 3:45 or so flight at mid range T/O weights. T/O weight was probably somewhere between 150,000 and 155,000lbs.

At these weights an -800 would reach 4000 feet in between 2-3 minutes and if doing a VNAP B and accelerating from V2+20 to Vm after passing 1000 AGL they would be at about 5 NM from the runway threshold.

The flash in the video is interesting. I am not sure it is a strobe as I would have thought that even in that short clip there would have been more that 1 flash of the strobes. I would have to do some research into the flash frequency of the strobes to validate this WAG one way or the other.

RIP to all involved and condolences to their families. Hopefully some solid evidence as to what happened will emerge quickly.

[Canus Chinookus]

If we were to stay at the takeoff thrust, config and V2(no VNAP procedure A or then it would be about 1.5 minutes, heavily loaded. Add another minute for a VNAP procedure.

[Kip Powick]

CNN has a similar video as the first one I posted, except it seems to be taken with the camera pointed more to the right and thus this time there are two distinct flashes.

The time interval between the flashes is 1.45 seconds

Wingtip strobes??

[Ex 9A Guy]

The interval sounds about right for strobes but I cannot find the video on CNNs site, just some map animation and a brief on the spot reporter bit.

[Moon The Loon]

Depending on the departure (VNAP) profile the distance would vary. The great circle distance between Beruit and Addis Ababa is 1497NM this is equivilant to YYC to YYZ a 3:45 or so flight at mid range T/O weights. T/O weight was probably somewhere between 150,000 and 155,000lbs.

At these weights an -800 would reach 4000 feet in between 2-3 minutes and if doing a VNAP B and accelerating from V2+20 to Vm after passing 1000 AGL they would be at about 5 NM from the runway threshold.

The flash in the video is interesting. I am not sure it is a strobe as I would have thought that even in that short clip there would have been more that 1 flash of the strobes. I would have to do some research into the flash frequency of the strobes to validate this WAG one way or the other.

RIP to all involved and condolences to their families. Hopefully some solid evidence as to what happened will emerge quickly.

The typical departure profiles everywhere "over there" is V2+10-20 to 3,000' AGL prior to acceleration. Climb thrust is selected ~1500' AGL.

Taking off under active lightning conditions would certainly have been good reason to abandon standard noise abatement profiles.

Since at least some video has been captured, hopefully more will surface in the coming days.

Deepest sympathies to all those who died.

[Ex 9A Guy]

The typical departure profiles everywhere "over there" is V2+10-20 to 3,000' AGL prior to acceleration. Climb thrust is selected ~1500' AGL.

So basically a VNAP A profile; which would put the aircraft at 3000 AGL a little closer to the departure end of the runway but at 4000 AGL in about the same place as a VNAP B or a Boeing standard departure.

Regardless of the profile used the differences will only be seen below 3000 AGL kind of like the difference between best rate of climd and best angle of climb. One is for close in obstacles or noise sensitivity the other for general performance or quietness.

[Don Hudson]

I think the image is far too bright (completely washed out) to be strobes - we can see the wing-tip strobes or anticollision strobe firing on takeoff of an aircraft, (I assume it is the subject aircraft) and there is no blinding of the video capture device. I think Kip's first response is correct - it's lightning. Illumination from a large explosion lasts longer as we saw in the airport video of the TAM A320 accident at Sao Paulo.

But we'll know soon enough.

From reputation and record, I agree with comments on Ethiopian - good airline.

Has anyone heard of anything new on the Sharjah B707 freighter accident? The airport video shows something falling off, perhaps a flap or an engine cowling, and the aircraft in a 90deg right bank about 20 seconds later.

[yul07]

BEIRUT (AP) -- The pilot of an Ethiopian Airlines plane that

crashed into the sea shortly after takeoff from Beirut performed

"a very fast and strange turn before disappearing from the

radar," Lebanon's transportation minister said Tuesday.

All 90 people on board were feared dead after the plane went

down in flames around at 2:30 a.m. Monday, during a night of

lightning and thunderstorms.

Transportation Minister Ghazi Aridi told The Associated Press

that the pilot flew in the opposite direction than recommended by

the Beirut control tower after taking off.

The tower "asked him to correct his path but he did a very fast

and strange turn before disappearing completely from the radar,"

Aridi said.

It was not clear why that happened or whether it was beyond the

pilot's control. Like most other airliners, the Boeing 737 also is

equipped with its own onboard weather radar which the pilot may

have used to avoid flying into thunderheads.

Lebanese officials have ruled out terrorism or "sabotage." The

plane was headed to the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa.

No survivors have been found more than 24 hours after the crash.

Emergency workers have pulled bodies from the sea and the numbers

reported so far range from a dozen to more than 20.

Searchers were trying to find the plane's black box and flight

data recorder, which are key to determining the cause of the crash.

The Lebanese army and witnesses say the plane was on fire

shortly after takeoff. A defense official said some witnesses

reported the plane broke up into three pieces.

An aviation analyst familiar with the investigation said Beirut

air traffic control was guiding the Ethiopian flight through the

thunderstorms for the first 2-3 minutes of its flight.

The official, who asked not to be identified because of the

sensitivity of the matter, said this was standard procedure by

Lebanese controllers to assist airliners departing from the airport

in poor weather conditions.

It is unclear exactly what happened in the last 2 minutes of

flight, the official said.

Ethiopian Airlines said late Monday that the pilot had more than

20 years of experience. It did not give the pilot's name or details

of other aircraft the pilot had flown. It said the recovered bodies

included those of Ethiopians and Lebanese.

Rescue teams and equipment sent from the U.N. and countries

including the United States and Cyprus were helping in the search

Tuesday. Conditions were chilly but relatively clear -- far better

than Monday, when rain lashed the coast.

Hours after the crash, pieces of the plane and other debris were

washing ashore, including a baby sandal, passenger seats, a fire

extinguisher, suitcases and bottles of medicine.

"We saw fire falling down from the sky into the sea," said

Khaled Naser, a gas station attendant who saw the plane plunge into

the sea.

The Lebanese army also said the plane was on fire shortly after

takeoff. A defense official said some witnesses reported the plane

broke up into three pieces.

At the Government Hospital in Beirut, Red Cross workers brought

in bodies covered with wool blankets as relatives gathered nearby.

Marla Pietton, wife of the French ambassador to Lebanon, was among

those on board, according to the French Embassy.

Aviation safety analyst Chris Yates said reports of fire could

suggest "some cataclysmic failure of one of the engines" or that

a bird or debris had been sucked into the engine.

He noted that modern aircraft are built to withstand all but the

foulest weather conditions.

"One wouldn't have thought that a nasty squall in and of itself

would be the prime cause of an accident like this," said Yates, an

analyst based in Manchester, England.

------

[RGT]

Lebanese officials have ruled out terrorism or "sabotage."...

I find it a little strange that they seem to be so sure of this.

[Airband]

Ethiopian crash jet flight recorders found off Lebanon

January 27, 2010 - BBC News

The "black box" flight recorders from a passenger jet which crashed off the coast of Lebanon two days ago have been found, officials say.

A search team located the recorders from the Ethiopian Airlines flight just over 1.3km (0.8 miles) underwater, 10km west of the capital, Beirut.

The search team is now trying to retrieve them, Lebanese security officials said.

All 90 people on board the flight are presumed dead following the crash.

At least 24 bodies have been pulled from the sea so far.

Ethiopian Airlines Flight 409, bound for Addis Ababa, crashed into the Mediterranean minutes after take-off from Beirut at 0237 (0037 GMT) during a severe thunderstorm on Monday.

BBC Report