Eager families of the passengers aboard doomed Ethiopian Airlines flight 409 crowded into the Beirut International Airport on Monday morning. The plane, a Boeing 737, was carrying 90 people and crew on its way to Addis Ababa and went down at about 2:30 a.m. local time in stormy weather. According to Minister of Transportation and Public Works Ghazi Aridi, the airliner lost contact with the control tower shortly after takeoff and crashed into the sea about 12 kilometers (seven miles) south of the airport. Some witnesses reported seeing a ball of fire plunge into the water. On board were 54 Lebanese, 22 Ethiopians, one Iraqi, one Syrian, and one French national. As of press time, 25 bodies were pulled from the sea, including that of Marla Sanchez, the wife of French Ambassador to Lebanon Denis Pietton. Relatives of the passengers were escorted into the airport’s Salon Sharaf, usually reserved as a greeting area for arriving diplomats. Dozens of men, women and children sat in front of a television in the main room of the Salon, where psychiatrists and public health experts from the Ministry of Health were dispatched to help calm the panicked family members. Hayet Jowaib sat on a large couch surrounded by female relatives, some of them crying while others stared down morosely. She was waiting for news on her uncle, who was going to transit in Addis Ababa on his way to Angola. "We don't know if he's dead or alive," Jowaib said with an exhausted sigh. "His wife doesn't know anything yet, because she's sick. She's diabetic, and we don't want to tell her anything until it's for sure." Joseph Imad, 35, whose Ethiopian sister-in-law was on the plane, paced back and forth near the television. "I can't explain how I feel,” he said turning his attention to his wife, who was leaning against the wall wailing. “Whenever I see my wife, it's very hard," he said quietly. Lebanese officials also streamed in to the Salon Sharaf as the morning wore on. Prime Minister Saad Hariri, Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, Interior Minister Ziad Baroud, Health Minister Mohammad Khalifeh, Public Works and Transport Minister Ghazi Aridi and Army Commander General Jean Kahwaji were among the government officials who addressed the passengers’ families. Hezbollah sent Loyalty to the Resistance bloc leader Mohammad Raad, as 12 of the 54 Lebanese on board were reportedly from the party’s southern stronghold, Nabatiyeh. Ali Jaffar, 37, was one. He said that his cousin was flying through Ethiopia on his way to Congo, where he has business. "We don't know anything,” he said through tears. “I was close to him. Nobody knows anything." The other people packed into the Salon shared Jaffar’s frustration with the lack of information available. Though President Michel Sleiman and other officials warned families not to jump to conclusions and asked them to wait for official news, rumors still circulated. Some people clung to a story about a man swimming to shore shortly after the crash. Senior Middle East Airlines captain Habib Karam said there may be hope. “There could be survivors…depending on what happened to the aircraft,” he told NOW. “If the aircraft was broken in half, probably [there are] no survivors, but if it lost engine power, there could possibly be survivors… The water is warm enough that people could survive in it. We just have to wait and find out.” But waiting seems out of the question for the families gathered at the airport. Several young men rushed to help an elderly woman who stumbled through the crowd, barely able to stand, crying and shouting, “Where is my son… I want my son.” T he men steadied her and helped her find her way inside the main room of the Salon to meet her family members. At the end of the room, a young lady, fully dressed in black, collapsed. Her father, an ophthalmologist who has been working in Gabon for two years, was on the plane. A man hugged the woman in an attempt to calm her down. He escorted her to the hall, where she lay down on a couch surrounded by two of her father’s friends, who, out of a tremendous stroke of luck, had decided to postpone their trip to Africa on the doomed flight. Manal Sarrouf, Hayeon Lee and Paige Kollock contributed reporting to this article.
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