Black box of Ethiopian crash jet retrieved

Lebanon's marine commandos have recovered the black box of the Ethiopian Airlines jet that crashed into the Mediterranean last month, a Lebanese army officer said. The Boeing 737 crashed on January 25 minutes after take-off from Beirut during a fierce thunderstorm. All 90 people on board died. Analysing data stored in the black box is critical to determining the cause of the crash. The officer said the black box was "carefully" pulled out and taken to a Lebanese naval base in Beirut. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to speak publicly to the media.

The Lebanese army officer said he did not know if the box recovered was the data flight recorder, the cockpit voice recorder, or both. He said the black box would later be handed over to a technical committee investigating the crash. *AP