Searchers find main part of crashed
Ethiopian plane fuselage

Also Black Box Retrieved 14 Days after Ethiopian
Plane Crash Naharnet

6 February, 2010 | AFP

    BEIRUT —
    Searchers have
    located a large
    part of the
    fuselage of an
    Ethiopian Airlines
    plane that crashed
    in the sea off
Lebanon last month killing 90 people, Transport Minister
Ghazi Aridi said on Saturday.

"The vessel 'Ocean Alert' has found part of the rear
section of the aircraft's cabin between 10 and 12 metres
(33 and 40 feet) long at a depth of 45 metres (150 feet)
off Naameh," 12 kilometres (seven miles) south of
Beirut, he told AFP.

"Specialist teams are getting ready to dive on the site to
look for the black boxes" or flight recorders that could
reveal why the January 25 crash happened, he said.

The Boeing 737-800 went down before dawn just
minutes after take-off during stormy weather from Beirut
airport, bound for Addis Ababa with 83 passengers and
seven crew on board.

No survivors were found from Flight 409, and only 15
bodies have so far been recovered.

Aridi said he hoped other sections of the plane would
soon be found, along with the bodies of the remaining
victims, who are believed to be still strapped to their seats
since the accident happened so soon after take-off.

Of the 15 bodies found, nine were Lebanese, five
Ethiopian and one Iraqi. Fifty-four Lebanese were on
board the aircraft.

The Lebanese military said on Saturday that "pictures are
being taken" of the located section of fuselage with a
view to raising it.

Flight recorders are usually placed in the rear of
commercial airliners, but the search teams do not yet
know whether they were thrown from the fuselage on
impact.

Lebanese officials have said the captain was instructed by
the control tower to change to a certain heading, but that
the aircraft then took a different course.

Experts have told AFP that the stormy weather may not
have been the only reason for the crash, and that the
aircraft may have had engine or hydraulics problems.

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