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BEIRUT: Recovery teams were working on Thursday to determine the exact location of the black boxes of an Ethiopian airliner that crashed off Lebanon's coast, with hope the data would provide answers to the mystery surrounding the tragedy.
Search teams had picked up the flight data recorder signals late Wednesday but Transport Minister Ghazi Aridi said it remained unclear whether the boxes were still inside the body of the Boeing 737-800, which plunged into the Mediterranean on Monday with 90 people on board.
"If the black boxes are not in the body of the plane, it is easier to access them," he said. "But if they are still inside the plane, the recovery will be more complicated."
The boxes were located in a seafloor trench which makes access more difficult, a defence ministry official told AFP.
On Thursday night, Information Minister Tareq Mitri said the recorders were about 14 kilometres off the coast at a depth of 1,500 metres and in an area of seven square kilometres.
Earlier, an army official had said the US navy destroyer USS Ramage, part of an international search operation, had picked up the signals approximately 10 kilometres west of Beirut airport at a depth of 1,300 metres.
Mitri said on Thursday night that a sweep of the area was continuing.
"I cannot fix a time, but the sweep has just about ended," he added. Once the recorders' exact location is pinpointed, he said a submarine would descend to photograph the area.
The Ocean Alert, a civilian vessel stationed in Cyprus, was working to salvage the device, a military source said. It is equipped to reach objects 2,000 metres deep.
Ethiopian Airlines Flight 409, bound for Addis Ababa, crashed into the Mediterranean minutes after takeoff from Beirut at 2:37 am (0037 GMT) during a raging thunderstorm on Monday.
All 83 passengers and seven crew are presumed dead. Only 14 bodies, including those of two toddlers, and body parts have been found so far.
Rescue officials have said a number of the victims may still be strapped to their seats underwater.
In Lebanon, several families have begun to hold memorial services for loved ones who were passengers on the plane even though their bodies have not all been recovered.
Around 200 schoolchildren on Thursday held a moment of silence on the beachfront near the airport in remembrance of the victims and dropped flowers into the sea.
There were conflicting reports as to whether the jet exploded while airborne or after it had hit the water, and officials have said there will be no answers until the data from the black boxes is retrieved and analysed.
Officials are especially keen on knowing why the plane veered off course after takeoff, but have ruled out sabotage.
Ethiopian Airlines spokesperson Wogayehu Tefere said the pilot was experienced and had been with the company for 20 years.
The probe into the disaster includes French and US experts, among them a technical advisor from Boeing.
Flight 409 had 30 Ethiopian nationals on board, including the crew. Most of the Ethiopian passengers were employed in Lebanon as domestic workers and were flying home to see their families.
There were also 54 Lebanese on board, most of them Shiites from southern Lebanon. Many were transiting in Addis Ababa to other countries in Africa, where they work.
Among the passengers was Marla Sanchez Pietton, wife of France's ambassador to Lebanon.
Ethiopian Airlines has had two other deadly accidents over the past 25 years, one of which was a hijacking which ended in a crash when the plane ran out of fuel. - AFP/de
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