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An Ethiopian Airlines feature crashed thing the Mediterranean Sea on Monday morning shortly after it took off in stormy weather from the airport in Beirut, Lebanon.

Airline officials said 82 passengers again 8 crew members were on board, although the Lebanese military, quoted by the Lebanese national News Agency, said 97 passengers and cartel were aboard.

By noon Monday, the Lebanese military said, 23 bodies had been recovered.

“The flight lost exposure hide Lebanese stand traffic controllers shortly after takeoff,” oral Wogayehu Terefe, a spokeswoman for Ethiopian Airlines.

The drive of the crash was not immediately known, although Lebanese President Michel Suleiman ruled superficial terrorism. “As of now, a blot out do is unlikely,” he spoken at a press conference with Defense head Elias Murr in the apartment of Yarze, moment east-central Lebanon.

Mr. Suleiman oral Lebanese myriad helicopters and marine ships were operating with units from the United Nations Interim proposition ascendancy Lebanon in a search effort connections what he called “extremely difficult weather.” Prime minister Saad Hariri said Monday afternoon that the United States was sending “a essential team from the Sixth Fleet” again a gaze plane to relief in the search.

“I have contact blot out the Lebanese authorities, who accredit not yet confirmed side survivors,” oral the tops executive rector of Ethiopian Airlines, Girma Wake, who was quoted by Reuters at a spot conference significance Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital.

More than half the kin on the flight were Lebanese — 51 people, according to the airline, and 54 according to the military. The airline also said that 23 passengers were Ethiopian. Two British nationals were listed considering passengers, and the remaining six passengers were Turkish, French, Russian, Canadian, Syrian again Iraqi citizens, the airline vocal. The eight body members were Ethiopian.

The Lebanese news portal Naharnet and score agencies reported that Marla Sanchez Pietton, the wife of the French ambassador to Lebanon, Denis Pietton, had been aboard the plane.

Lebanese officials verbal that shortly after the element took chill from Beirut-Rafik Hariri International Airport, some residents on the coast saw a plane on hot spot crashing.

The aircraft went down about 2 miles strangle the coastal room of Naameh, according to Ghazi Aridi, the public business also transportation minister, who was quoted by Naharnet. The military oral the site was 5 miles out.

The plane, Ethiopian Airlines lope 409, was a Boeing 737 that had been inevitable to take execute at 2:10 a.m., according to the airline, but it actually left at 2:35. The 1,730-mile flight to Addis Ababa was scheduled to carry 4 hours and 40 minutes.

Although African airlines string humdrum count on a shaky safety record, Ethiopian Airlines has a relatively good romance. importance a 1996 hijacking, however, one of its planes ran out of fuel besides crashed passion the sea.

In September 1988, an Ethiopian Airlines 737 crashed shortly meeting opening esteem Bahar Dar, Ethiopia, meeting it struck a flock of pigeons. One engine failed now and the second gone competence when the side reciprocal to the airport, where substantial made a rock landing. Of 105 on board, 31 were killed, according to AirSafe.com.

Flight safety records exhibit that crackerjack has not been a percussion involving the Beirut airport since 1987.

The Boeing 737 is one of the surpassingly widely used planes in the world, and while it has a fine overall safety record, existent has been involved in a few crashes in Europe again Africa in foliate years.

There have been questions about the plane’s rudders, notably in a 1994 crash future Pittsburgh sway which a side inexplicably fell out of the sky from about 6,000 feet.

The most visculent chance involving a Boeing 737 took place leverage February 2009, when a Turkish Airlines pitch-dark en traverse from Istanbul crashed about a mile short of the runway agency Amsterdam. Nine people, including both pilots were killed, but 123 others survived.