747 Landing – St.Maarten

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAfQwDizpRo

Ethiopian Airlines Jet Crashes in Na’ameh Lebanon with 90 Passengers

An Ethiopian Airlines plane with 90 people on board crashed into the sea shortly after taking off from Beirut in stormy weather early on Monday. The airline’s chief executive said there was no word of survivors.

The Boeing 737-800, heading for the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa, disappeared off the radar about five minutes after taking off at 2:37 am local time (0037 GMT) during a thunder storm and heavy rain.

Fourteen bodies have so far been recovered near the crash site three-and-a-half km (two miles) west of the coastal village of Na’ameh. Eighty-three passengers and seven crew were on the flight,

Marla Pietton, wife of the French ambassador to Lebanon Denis Pietton, was one of those aboard, the French embassy said.

Besides Pietton, the passenger list included 54 Lebanese, 22 Ethiopian and two British nationals, according to airline officials. Other nationals included a French Canadian, a Russian, an Iraqi and a Syrian.

Some of the family members were angry that the plane was allowed to take off in bad weather. Heavy rains and storms have caused flooding and damage in some parts of the country over the past few days.

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

Some witnesses saw “a ball of fire descending into the sea.”

In an interview with FRANCE 24,  David Learmount, aviation expert and an editor at Flight International, a magazine on the industry, expressed his surprise at the events.

“Ethiopian Airlines has, until this, been absolutely a beacon of light,” he said. “It’s got an exceptional safety record.”

Learmount also noted that the plane that went down was “from the latest version of the 737 series”, making the crash even more unusual. “We have a first-class airline and a first-class airplane, and there’s been an accident,” he said.

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

The airline’s website carries this statement: “Ethiopian Airlines regrets to confirm the unfortunate accident of ET-409 which took place shortly after departure from Beirut International Airport today January 25, 2010.”

It added that an investigative team had already arrived at the scene.