Lebanon finds jet’s black box

LEBANON’S marine commandos yesterday recovered the black box of the Ethiopian Airlines jet that crashed into the Mediterranean last month, the Lebanese army said.

The Boeing 737 crashed on January 25 minutes after takeoff from Beirut during a fierce thunderstorm.

All 90 people on board are believed to have died.

The Lebanese military also said eight more bodies were recovered yesterday, raising the number of bodies retrieved since the crash to 23. Passenger jets carry two black boxes – a data flight recorder and a cockpit voice recorder. They are commonly referred to as simply “the black box”. The two are usually located in the rear of a plane, the area most likely to survive a crash intact.

Transportation Minister Ghazi Aridi told the local Al-Jadeed television the box recovered yesterday was the data flight recorder. He had earlier said the black box was located at a depth of 45 meters off the coast just south of Beirut airport.

“Now, the search is continuing for the second box,” he said, referring to the cockpit voice recorder.

A Lebanese army officer said the black box would be handed over to a committee investigating the crash. It includes Lebanese, Ethiopian and French investigators.

Earlier, the officer said search crews located the cockpit of the jet but there were no bodies inside it.