Lebanon confirms 45 bodies retrieved from Ethiopian jet crash

Feb 12, 2010, 16:22 GMT

Beirut - Lebanese Health Minister Mohammed Jawad Khalife said Friday that 45 bodies had been retrieved and identified to date as passengers of the Ethiopian Airlines plane that crashed off the coast of Lebanon on January 25.

'We have so far, through DNA tests identified, 45 bodies, Lebanese and Ethiopians, including the pilot of the plane,' Khalifeh said.

The Boeing 737-800 which was bound for Addis Ababa with 83 passengers and seven crew on board, crashed four minutes after take off from Beirut international airport. No survivors were found.

Boeing official Fakher Daghestani told the pan-Arab daily Asharq al-Awsat that 'official results of the investigation into the cause of the plane crash haven't been announced yet.'

Black box data show sabotage could not be blamed for the crash, Lebanese Transport Minister Ghazi Aridi said Thursday.

The data 'showed that all the aircraft's instruments functioned well until it crashed, which rejects the hypothesis of an act (of sabotage) involving an explosion,' Aridi told a news conference at Beirut airport.

Ethiopian Airlines had said Wednesday said it could not rule out 'sabotage' as the cause of the crash of Ethiopian Flight 409.

'Ethiopian Airlines does not rule out all possible causes including the possibility of sabotage until the final outcome of the investigation is known,' the company said in a statement.