Ethiopian Airlines Flight 409
Boeing 737-8AS · Loss of control in flight
From Beirut Rafic Hariri International Airport (BEY) to Addis Ababa Bole International Airport (ADD)
Event
- NTSB case
- DCA10RA023
- Event typeAccident: someone killed or seriously injured, or the aircraft substantially damaged (NTSB definition). Incident: an occurrence that affected or could have affected safety, short of that. Glossary
- Accident
- InvestigationHow far the investigation had got when the record was published: preliminary, ongoing, final or completed. Unknown where the source does not say. Glossary
- Final · Ministry of Public Works & Transport final report, 17 Jan 2012
- Event fatalities
- 90 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- 0
- Occupants
- 90
- Survivors
- 0
- InjuriesFatal: death within 30 days. Serious: over 48 hours in hospital within a week, most broken bones, severe bleeding, nerve or organ damage, or serious burns. Minor: anything less. Glossary
- 0 serious · 0 minor (NTSB)
- OperationWhat kind of flying it was, grouped by the rules it flew under: airline (US Part 121), air taxi and commuter (Part 135), general aviation (Part 91 and similar), military or government. Glossary
- Airline
- WeatherVisual meteorological conditions (VMC): good enough to fly by looking outside. Instrument conditions (IMC): cloud or low visibility, flying by instruments. Glossary
- Instrument Meteorological Cond
Boeing 737-8AS
- Flight
- ET409
- Aircraft type
- Boeing 737
- Category
- Airplane
- RegistrationThe aircraft's tail number, such as N12345 or G-ABCD. Registrations are reissued, so the same one years apart can be a different aircraft. Glossary
- ET-ANB
- Operator
- Ethiopian Airlines
- Onboard fatalities
- 90
- Route
- From Beirut Rafic Hariri International Airport (BEY)To Addis Ababa Bole International Airport (ADD)
- Aircraft age
- Not recorded
- Flight rulesThe regulations the flight operated under: in the US, Part 91 (general aviation), Part 121 (airlines), Part 135 (air taxi and commuter) and others; for flights abroad, the NTSB's coarser commercial or non-commercial code. Glossary
- Non-U.S., Commercial
- Phase of flightThe stage of the flight when things started to go wrong: standing, taxi, takeoff, initial climb, en route, maneuvering, approach or landing. Glossary
- Initial climb
- Defining eventThe single coded event the NTSB judges best describes what happened (records from 2008 on). Older records name the first occurrence in the sequence instead. Glossary
- Loss of control in flight
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Destroyed
Cause areas
- Personnel issues › Task performance
- Personnel issues › Miscellaneous
From the investigation findings the Wikipedia article reports, sorted into the NTSB's cause areas with AI assistance.
Approximate · Coordinates from the Wikipedia article; not checked against an investigation report.
From the Wikipedia article
Ethiopian Airlines Flight 409 was an international commercial flight scheduled from Beirut to Addis Ababa of a Boeing 737-800 that crashed into the Mediterranean Sea shortly after takeoff from Rafic Hariri International Airport on 25 January 2010, killing all 90 people on board. This was the first fatal crash for Ethiopian Airlines since the hijacking of Ethiopian Airlines Flight 961 in 1996.
Accident
The Boeing 737 took off from runway 21 at Beirut–Rafic Hariri International Airport in stormy weather, with 82 passengers and eight crew members on board. The METAR data indicated wind speeds of 8 knot from varying directions, with thunderstorms in the vicinity of the airport. The aircraft climbed erratically to 9000 ft, stalled and entered a spiral dive to the left. Radar contact was lost a few seconds before it crashed into the Mediterranean Sea at 02:41 local time (UTC +2/EET), four or five minutes after take off. Witnesses near the coast reported seeing the aircraft on fire as it crashed into the sea.
Investigation and cause
Investigation
The Lebanese Civil Aviation Authority (LCAA) investigated the accident, with the assistance of the BEA, Boeing, and the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) of the United States.
Lebanese President Michel Suleiman stated before the flight data recorders were found that the accident was not due to terrorism. Lebanese Information Minister Tarek Mitri rejected the notion that the aircraft should not have been allowed to take off under the current weather conditions, stating that "many" other aircraft had taken off during the time period.
Final report
The final investigation report was created by the Lebanese Civil Aviation Authority (LCAA), part of the Lebanese Ministry of Public Works and Transport, and presented on 17 January 2012.
Cause
The report concluded that "the probable causes of the accident were the flight crew's mismanagement of the aircraft's speed, altitude, headings, and attitude through inconsistent flight control inputs resulting in a loss of control and their failure to abide by CRM (Crew Resource Management) principles of mutual support and calling deviations".
Text from the Wikipedia article “Ethiopian Airlines Flight 409” (revision 1364931646, retrieved 2026-09-18) by its authors, under CC BY-SA 4.0. Extracted as plain text: references, tables, images and some sections are left out. Read the article
NTSB narrative
On January 25, 2010, about 0041 UTC, Ethiopian Airlines flight 409, Boeing 737-800, ET-ANB, crashed into the Mediterranean Sea shortly after takeoff from Beirut-Rafic Hairiri International Airport, Beirut, Lebanon. Night instrument meteorological conditions prevailed at the time of the accident. The 8 crew members and 92 passengers were fatally injured. The airplane was destroyed and there was no fire. The airplane was en route to Addis Ababa-Bole International Airport, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
The investigation is being conducted by the Lebanon Ministry of Public Works and Transport. A U.S. Accredited Representative from the NTSB has been assigned to assist in the investigation.
Verbatim NTSB factual narrative from the NTSB dataset
Sources
Wikipedia article: Ethiopian Airlines Flight 409
- Revision
- 1364931646 · 2026-07-19 · retrieved 2026-09-18
- Wikidata
- Q695290
- Licence
- Text CC BY-SA 4.0, by the article's authors; Wikidata CC0; town positions GeoNames (CC BY 4.0)
NTSB record DCA10RA023
- Event ID
- 20100126X35439
- Case number
- DCA10RA023
- Dataset
- full-current
- Source SHA-256
- 5cf380f0061817c0331a6b2d8cc7e0ee3a79bea469a1001dc5c10e56f35f5ab3
Where each value comes from
- Record
- Wikipedia article "Ethiopian Airlines Flight 409" (page 25937315, revision 1364931646); merged with NTSB case DCA10RA023 (events / aircraft)
- Date
- Wikipedia infobox: date; matches the Ministry of Public Works & Transport, Republic of Lebanon (Investigation Committee / Investigator In Charge) final report
- Place and country
- Wikipedia infobox: site
- Map position
- Wikipedia: Wikipedia article coordinates
- Aircraft, operator and route
- Wikipedia infobox: aircraft type, registration, operator, origin and destination; route airports from the linked airport articles' Wikidata codes (OurAirports); gaps and aircraft details from NTSB record DCA10RA023
- Operation
- airline flight number in the infobox
- Fatalities
- Wikipedia: Wikipedia infobox: aircraft fatalities; matches the Ministry of Public Works & Transport, Republic of Lebanon (Investigation Committee / Investigator In Charge) final report
- Ground fatalities
- Ministry of Public Works & Transport, Republic of Lebanon (Investigation Committee / Investigator In Charge) final report
- Summary
- Wikipedia infobox: summary
Source notes (4)
- One occurrence in two sources, merged: the Wikipedia article "Ethiopian Airlines Flight 409" and NTSB case DCA10RA023, matched by the same aircraft registration and date. For this event outside the United States Wikipedia's values are used where the two differ; each value names its source.
- No bulk values were replaced by the NTSB case API.
- Corrected after a review of the NTSB narrative, which states these values explicitly: coordinates. The narrative places the crash in the Mediterranean just after takeoff from Beirut; the recorded latitude 39.82 is in central Turkey, and 33.82 at the same longitude is Beirut (a one-digit error).
- Checked against the Ministry of Public Works & Transport, Republic of Lebanon (Investigation Committee / Investigator In Charge) final report (2012-01-17) on 2026-09-18. The report states the same date, flight number, fatalities, registration, operator, departure, destination and damage. Taken from the report: ground fatalities. Not checked: place, crash-site coordinates, aircraft type and type of operation.