Search teams off Lebanese coast recover crashed Ethiopian Airlines’ 2nd black box

Ethiopian jet’s 2nd black box retrieved from sea

BEIRUT — Lebanese search teams retrieved on Wednesday the second black box from the passenger jet that crashed into the Mediterranean last month, while Ethiopian Airlines said it was still early to rule out any cause including sabotage.

The Boeing 737 crashed on Jan. 25, just minutes after takeoff from Beirut during a fierce thunderstorm. All 90 people on board died.

Within hours, Lebanese officials had said there was no indication of terrorism or sabotage on board Flight 409, which was headed for the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa.

However, Ethiopian Airlines said in a statement Wednesday it did not rule out the possibility of sabotage but that it was “too early to conclude the cause” of the crash.

The statement, posted on its Web site, said the investigation was still in its early stage, with the aircraft wreckage and cockpit voice recorder not yet retrieved for analysis.

Passenger jets carry two black boxes — a data flight recorder and a cockpit voice recorder.

The data flight recorder was retrieved among the plane’s wreckage last Sunday at a depth of about 150 feet (45 meters) off the coastal village of Naameh just south of Beirut airport. It was flown to France for analysis on Monday.

The cockpit voice recorder was retrieved Wednesday in the same area, but Lebanese officials said it was missing a key piece.

The state-run National News Agency quoted Transportation Minister Ghazi Aridi as saying the army’s marine commandos were currently searching for the missing piece near to where the recorder was discovered.

An army statement said only the base for the black box was found and not its memory recorder.

A senior security official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to give official statements to the media, said the second black box would also be flown to France.

The January crash prompted a search and rescue operation that included U.N. peacekeepers, Navy ship USS Ramage and a submarine. DNA samples were collected from relatives of the victims in Lebanon and Ethiopia to help identify bodies pulled out of the sea.

According to lists released after the crash, 23 Ethiopian passengers were on the plane as well as seven crew members. It was not clear if all the crew were Ethiopians. A British citizen, an Iraqi and a Syrian, as well as the wife of the French ambassador to Lebanon were also aboard the plane.

The black boxes are analyzed by BEA, a French agency that specializes in assisting with technical investigations of air crashes.