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BEIRUT : Lebanon said on Sunday it has retrieved a black box from an Ethiopian Airlines jet that crashed in the sea killing 90 people, raising hopes of an answer to why the plane veered into a fierce storm.
"The Lebanese navy has recovered a black box from the Ethiopian plane and it has been transported to Beirut naval base to be handed over" to crash investigators, the military said.
Transport Minister Ghazi Aridi told AFP the flight data recorder had been retrieved while efforts continued to also recover the cockpit voice recorder in a bid to unravel the mystery crash.
Searchers located the two flight recorders on Saturday and Lebanese army divers went down to retrieve them. Earlier on Sunday, the army had said the recovery was still underway for both boxes.
The boxes were found under the rear part of the fuselage, Aridi said, adding that the cockpit was also located on Sunday as operations continued to recover the other box and find more bodies.
The Boeing 737-800 plunged into the Mediterranean before dawn on January 25, just minutes after take-off during stormy weather from Beirut airport. It was bound for Addis Ababa with 83 passengers and seven crew on board.
No survivors were found from Flight 409, and only 15 bodies have so far been recovered.
Lebanese officials have said the captain was instructed by the control tower to change to a certain heading, but that the aircraft then took a different course.
The black boxes are expected to contain data to explain the circumstances of the crash.
The probe is being undertaken by a Lebanese technical team backed by the BEA, France's accident investigation agency.
"If recovering the second box takes a long time, we will send the first one ahead to France for the data to be interpreted," Aridi said, adding the focus would return to the search for bodies after most of the plane had been found.
A final report on the crash is to go to Lebanon, Ethiopia and Boeing.
Experts have told AFP that the stormy weather may not have been the only reason for the crash, and that the aircraft may have had engine or hydraulics problems.
Syrian authorities have informed Lebanon that debris from the plane has also been found off western Syria's coastal resort of Lattakia.
A search vessel, Ocean Alert, meanwhile, has located the cabin's rear sections, according to Aridi. The sections were 10 to 12 metres (33 to 40 foot) long, and at a depth of 45 metres (150 feet) off Naameh, just south of Beirut.
Flight recorders are usually placed in the rear of commercial airliners.
Aridi said on Saturday that he hoped other sections of the plane would soon be found, along with bodies of the remaining victims still thought to be strapped to their seats.
Of the bodies found so far, nine were Lebanese, five Ethiopian and one Iraqi. Fifty-four Lebanese were on board the aircraft as well as the wife of France's ambassador to Beirut.
The Lebanese military said pictures are being taken of the located sections of fuselage with a view to raising it. - AFP/ms
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