An Ethiopian Airlines plane with 90 people on board crashed into the sea shortly after taking off from Beirut in bad weather early on Monday. Four bodies were recovered as a search for survivors began, Reuters reported. The Boeing 737-800, heading for Addis Ababa, disappeared off the radar some five minutes after taking off at 2:37 a.m. (0037 GMT) during a thunder storm and heavy rain. Lebanese President Michel Suleiman said he did not think the plane had been brought down deliberately. "As of now, a sabotage act is unlikely. The investigation will uncover the cause," Suleiman told a news conference. Eighty-three passengers and seven crew were on the flight, Lebanese Transport Minister Ghazi al-Aridi told reporters at the airport where relatives of the passengers were gathering after hearing of the crash. "(The crash) site has been identified three-and-a-half km (two miles) west of the (coastal) village of Na'ameh," he said. Fifty-four of those on board were Lebanese, 22 were Ethiopian, two were British and there were also Canadian, Russian, French, Iraqi and Syrian nationals.
