Odd if true, because planes being hit by lightning are actually fairly common occurrences.
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 from radar screens five minutes after taking off at 2:37am (12:37am British time).
The Lebanese army said it had broken up in the air. Witnesses described the impact as a “flash that lit up the whole sea”.
Lebanese authorities quickly ruled out terrorism, and weather is thought to have played a part in the crash, which happened amid thunder, lightning and heavy rain. Beirut airport officials said the aircraft had been struck by lightning and there were reports the crew requested a change of direction to avoid the thunderstorm after reaching 8,000ft.
Lebanese defence minister Elias el-Murr said there was no evidence of a terrorist attack and that the weather was “in principle” to blame for the crash.
President Michel Suleiman ruled out sabotage “as of now”, while transport minister Ghazi Aridi said: “The weather undoubtedly was very bad.”
Some relatives expressed anger the aircraft had been allowed to take off. One said: “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.”
However, Ethiopian Airlines chief executive Ato Girma Wake said: “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.
“Let me first extend my deepest sympathy to the family members and friends of the victims.”
Last night, more than 30 bodies had been recovered, along with debris such as children’s sandals.
An RAF helicopter based in Cyprus joined the search by Lebanese army patrol boats, helicopters and divers off Na’ameh, six miles south of Beirut.
The eight-year-old plane, leased from CIT Aerospace, is believed to have been acquired from Ryanair last September. It underwent maintenance checks exactly one month ago, with no technical problems being found.
Ethiopian Airlines has two other Boeing 737-800s, one of which was bought from Scottish airline Flyglobespan a week before it collapsed last month.
Mr Krisht’s former wife Tania, 44, said: “I got a call at 5:20am to tell me he was dead. I’m still praying for a miracle – that he might be clinging to a bit of debris somewhere.
“He was here only a couple of weeks ago, visiting for Christmas. He was the most generous man and was still one of my best friends. I will miss him dearly.”
The other passengers comprised 22 Ethiopians, 54 Lebanese, one French, one Russian, one Canadian, one Syrian and one Iraqi. They included Marla Pietto, wife of the French ambassador to Lebanon, and two toddlers.
Andree Qusayfi said of his brother, Ziad, 35, who was on the plane: “We begged him to postpone his flight because of the storm. But he insisted on going because he had work appointments.”
Zeinab Seklawi said her son Yasser, 24, had called her as he was boarding. She said: “I told him, ‘God be with you’ and I went to sleep. Please find my son. I know he’s alive and wouldn’t leave me.”
Ethiopian Airlines said a British team, experts in dealing with the aftermath of aircraft accidents, was due to arrive in Beirut last night.
The eight people, from Blake Emergency Services in London, will help with the rescue mission and set up a family assistance centre for relatives.
Reports of fire could suggest a ‘cataclysmic failure of one of the engines’
THE Beirut crash involved one of the world’s safest aircraft being flown by an airline with a good safety record.
The Boeing 737-800 was only eight years old, and the crash was the first to be suffered by state-owned Ethiopian Airlines for 14 years.
Experts said the thunderstorm alone should not have brought the plane down.
Aviation safety analyst Chris Yates said it was far too early to determine what had caused the crash, but he noted that modern aircraft were built to withstand all but the foulest weather conditions.
He said: “One wouldn’t have thought that a nasty squall in and of itself would be the prime cause of an accident like this.”
He added that reports of fire could suggest “some cataclysmic failure of one of the engines” or that something had been sucked into the engine, such as a bird or debris.
Sidney Dekker, a professor of flight safety at the School of Aviation at Lund University in Sweden, said if reports of an engine fire proved to be correct, the accident could have resulted from a loss of control at a relatively low altitude, where it would have been difficult to recover.
Prof Dekker, who is also a Boeing 737 pilot, said the plane’s engines were overpowered to fulfil performance requirements in the event of the loss of an engine at take-off. He said this tended to turn the aircraft towards the dead engine.
He said poor visibility in low cloud, combined with high winds, may have contributed to the problem faced by the pilots trying to regain control.
The last Ethiopian Airlines crash was in 1996, when a Boeing 767 ran out of fuel after being hijacked, and 123 of the 175 people on board were killed when it ditched in the sea.
In a previous incident in 1988, 31 of 104 people on board a Boeing 737 were killed when it crash-landed while returning to Bahar Dar in Ethiopia after striking a flock of pigeons following take-off.
