- Investigation team to start analysing facts

Representatives of the Ethiopian Civil Aviation Authority (ECAA) and the Ethiopian Airlines last week met the Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 737-800 aircraft accident investigation team in Beirut. Reliable sources told The Reporter that Girma Gebre, head of the Aircraft Accident Prevention and Investigation Bureau with the ECAA, and Capt. Desta Zeru, head of flight operations with Ethiopian, held a one-day meeting with the accident investigation team. “It was a technical review meeting with the investigation team,” sources said.

Girma Gebre was head of the Ethiopian investigation team but he was replaced by Tefera Mekonen, who is a permanent representative of the Ethiopian government at the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO).

Sources said the investigation committee had recently handed over three final reports on the analysis of the trim tab part of the plane’s rear, in an operation conducted in cooperation with the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board. The NTBS also analyzed black spots found near the hot air exits of the auxiliary power unit.

Aircraft investigation has four phases-fact finding, analysis, conclusion and recommendation. So far the investigation team led by Capt Aziz ( a senior Lebanese pilot) has been engaged in fact-finding missions (gathering information about the accident). At the technical review meeting, the members of the investigation team deliberated on the technical information gathered by the team.

Sources said the investigation team will soon start analysing the facts. “This is a very crucial stage in aircraft investigation process. If the team makes the analysis, that means it will arrive at the conclusion as to what caused the accident.”

Sources said the investigation team will start analysing the facts next month, adding that representatives of the Ethiopian Airlines and ECAA will be called to Beirut to witness the work. According to these sources, the analysis will not take long. “When the analysis will be finalised, a draft final report would be sent to the country of occurrence (Lebanon), the country of manufacturer (US Boeing) and the country of operator (Ethiopia). When all these parties agree, the final report will be released. The three involved parties will be given 60 days to forward their comment. If any of the involved parties have objections, the report will be published, attached with the reservations. If they do not send comments within 60 days, it will be considered as if they had agreed with the findings.”

The report also stated that the French Bureau of Investigations and Analysis for Civil Aviation’s Safety, working in cooperation with Boeing, was unable to recover a damaged segment on one of the retrieved five cockpit voice recorders. It was unclear how the CVR memory chip was found detached from the black box. It is also confusing how the important segments of the CVR were damaged. This has cast doubts on the investigation process.

The political conflict that flared up between Hezbollah and the Lebanese government has affected the aircraft investigation process. The Lebanese authorities gave the political turmoil as an excuse for delay in the investigation process. The investigation on the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafic, conducted by the UN, was the cause of the political dispute with Hezbollah. The Lebanese government has been accusing its ark foe Syria for the death of Rafic Hariri. However, an independent investigation conducted by the UN revealed that Hezbollah is responsible for the assassination and this has instigated a dispute among the coalition government officials in which Hezbollah has seats and the government was dissolved. The conflict has put the country in a stalemeat for six months until last June when a general election was held. The election brought Hezbollah to power and this does not seem to be a good news for Ethiopian officials. “Beirut is a city where senior government officials of different nationals were assassinated. It is a very sensitive area,” a political analyst told The Reporter.

The Lebanese Civil Aviation Authority (LCAA) is in charge of the investigation process. The director general of the LCAA, Hamdi Chaouk (Ph.D.), has left Lebanon during the political turmoil and did not return to his homeland.

The Lebanese authorities have denied access to a number of data requested by the Ethiopian Civil Aviation Authority and the Ethiopian Airlines. Profiles of passengers, segments filmed by the CCTV cameras at the Rafic Hariri Airport, films of the luggage scanning machines (scanned at the day the accident happened) and recorded material by the airport’s traffic control are some of the data the Lebanese authorities adamantly refused to hand over. Some of the victims’ bodies were buried before physicians had conducted medical examinations. It is to be recalled that only eight percent of the aircraft body was recovered from the Mediterranean Sea.

“ICAO says the whole purpose of aircraft investigation is to learn the truth and avoid future accidents. However, in most cases politics and business interests get involved and push the investigation process off course,” a senior aviation safety analyst told The Reporter. “Knowing the real cause of the ET409 accident seems elusive.”

Source: ER