Flight recorder retrieved from Ethiopian Airlines plane crash site

Feb 10, 2010, 17:16 GMT

Beirut - Lebanese army search teams on Wednesday retrieved the second black box containing the flight recorder of the Ethiopian Airlines plane that crashed last month off the coast of Lebanon.

The Boeing 737 crashed in bad weather on January 25, four minutes after take off from Beirut International Airport. All 90 people on board died.

The planes usually have two black boxes, one which records the flight data and the other which registers what goes on in the cockpit.

The data flight recorder, which is the most important, was retrieved Sunday at a depth of about 45 meters off the village of Naameh, 12 kilometers south of Beirut airport.

It was flown to France for analysis on Sunday.

A Lebanese army source said the second black box would also be sent to France.

Transport Minister Ghazi Aridi was quoted by Lebanese media as saying that a vital piece was missing, but that army divers were still searching for it.

Divers have also found several human body parts and taken them to Beirut Hospital for DNA tests.

So far some 33 bodies have been recovered from the sea.