Lebanon's transport minister says preliminary study of voice recordings indicates cause of crash of Ethiopian Airlines Flight 409 was "human error".
Minister Ghazi Aridi reported on Saturday that the examination of the black boxes aboard the flight bound for Addis Ababe when it crashed into the Mediterranean Sea on Jan. 25, claiming the lives of all 90 passengers and crew, leads the investigators in Paris to conclude that the voices on the machine recording the conversation between the Ethiopian pilot and the air traffic controller at Rafic Hariri International Airport in Beirut indicate human error.
Ethiopian Airlines (EAL) has disputed the statements from Lebanese officials saying they are "premature, and unlawful". EAL Chief Operating Officer, Desta Zeru tells VOA news reports that alluded to pilot error was the cause of the accident are mere speculation.
"The two black boxes have been recovered and are being studied. We have not yet finalized the investigation since there are remaining data that need to be incorporated," Desta Zeru said.
Listen to EAL's response to Lebanon's "preliminary findings" on the top-right hand side of this page.
