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C O N F I D E N T I A L BEIRUT 000154 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 02/12/2020 
TAGS: EAIR PGOV PREL MASS MCAP LE ET
SUBJECT: CRASH OF ETHIOPIAN AIRLINES 409, GOL CRISIS 
MANAGEMENT 
 
Classified By: Ambassador Michele J. Sison for reasons 
1.4 (b) and (d). 
 
¶1. (C) SUMMARY:  The January 25 crash of Ethiopian Airlines 
flight 409 into the Mediterranean minutes after takeoff from 
the Beirut airport has brought to light the GOL's weak crisis 
management planning and interagency coordination.  While such 
deficiencies are common around the world, Lebanon's unique 
political environment exacerbated difficulties, and its 
public relations handling of the accident in particular 
suffered.  On a more positive note, the crash also showcased 
the ability of the U.S. military and other USG agencies to 
provide rapid and effective assistance in response to such 
disasters.  American assistance from the U.S. Navy, the 
National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) and the Federal 
Aviation Administration (FAA) proved crucial to the success 
of the investigation and salvage operation, and the GOL has 
repeatedly expressed its profound gratitude for our help. 
Although the result of the investigation is not yet public, 
it will likely place blame for the crash on the actions of 
the aircraft's two pilots.  The NTSB representative leading 
the investigation (please protect) anticipates that the 
findings will lead to rough times for Ethiopia's national 
airline.  End Summary. 
 
¶2. (SBU) Ethiopian Airlines (ET) flight 409 crashed into the 
Mediterranean off the Lebanese coast about four minutes after 
takeoff at 2:30 am local time on January 25.  The crash of ET 
409, a Boeing 737-800 aircraft with 90 people on board, was 
Lebanon's first air disaster in more than 40 years.  Heavy 
thunderstorms in the vicinity of Beirut's international 
airport at the time of the crash, coupled with early 
"eyewitness" reports in the media of "fireballs" and midair 
explosions, quickly confused the situation.  Within hours of 
the crash, more than a dozen intact bodies and floating 
wreckage were recovered from the water not far from the 
seaside airport, but the remainder of the wreckage and the 
victims remained undiscovered for more than a week. 
 
THE U.S. RESPONSE 
----------------- 
 
¶3. (SBU) We learned of the event when Prime Minister Hariri 
telephoned the Ambassador before dawn on January 25, shortly 
after the aircraft crashed, to request U.S. assistance in 
locating the plane.  With the help of the Department's 
Operations Center, that request was quickly relayed to U.S. 
forces in the region, resulting in the dispatch of the USS 
Ramage and a P-3 aircraft to aid in the search.  The USS 
Ramage arrived on the scene by late afternoon on January 25 
and joined Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF), UN Interim Force in 
Lebanon (UNIFIL) and commercial craft in the search.  The P-3 
ultimately returned to base after the Lebanese authorities 
said they did not believe they required its assistance.  A 
dive advance team from Mobile Diving and Salvage Unit (MDSU) 
Two arrived from Bahrain on January 26 to provide technical 
assistance to the GOL and prepare for possible diving 
operations.  USS Ramage remained on the scene, scanning the 
water with sonar and recovering debris, until February 1.  On 
February 3, the rescue and salvage ship USNS Grapple arrived 
to relieve USS Ramage.  USNS Grapple remained in Lebanese 
waters until February 12, providing both a platform for the 
MDSU Two divers and a command and control center for the 
larger salvage operation. 
 
¶4. (SBU) Since the airplane involved in the crash was 
manufactured in the United States, on January 28 an 
investigative team led by the NTSB and including 
representatives of the FAA and Boeing arrived in Beirut. 
Separately, a team of more than a dozen Ethiopian officials 
(including initially the foreign minister) and 
representatives of Ethiopian Airlines came to Lebanon to 
participate in the search and investigation efforts. 
 
WHO'S IN CHARGE? 
---------------- 
 
¶5. (C) The day after the crash, the Prime Minister's office 
designated Director General of Civil Aviation Hamdi Chaouk as 
the lead official for the investigation.  Chaouk, who had no 
 
previous experience with crash investigations, waited for the 
NTSB-led team to arrive from the U.S. on January 28 before 
starting the investigation.  Chaouk relied heavily on the 
team.  Poor communication between Chaouk and the LAF officers 
given authority to manage the search and recovery operation 
contributed to a week-long delay in locating the wreckage 
despite accurate leads from the investigation team on the 
probable crash location.  While U.S. accredited 
representative and NTSB investigator Dennis Jones praised 
Chaouk's professionalism in a difficult situation, he noted 
that the DG had been forced to spend vast amounts of time 
doing "damage control" in response to misleading or false 
information disseminated by other high-level GOL officials in 
the days after the crash. 
 
RESPONSIBLE PEOPLE SAYING 
IRRESPONSIBLE THINGS 
------------------------- 
 
¶6. (C) Jones cited public relations as the weakest part of 
the GOL response to the accident.  He told us, "what is 
unique here is that you had responsible people saying 
irresponsible things on a daily basis."  Jones noted that the 
Lebanese government had not spoken with a single, coordinated 
voice, which had made the post-crash period especially 
difficult for victims' families.  Indeed, statements on 
January 25 from both the prime minister's office and the LAF 
announcing that survivors and bodies had been found turned 
out to be a complete fabrication, apparently disseminated in 
an effort to give hope to the families.  Minister of Public 
Works and Transportation Ghazi Aridi speculated publicly on 
January 26 that the pilot's failure to follow instructions 
from the control tower caused the crash.  In subsequent days, 
Aridi repeatedly released information that would normally be 
confidential until the conclusion of the investigation.  He 
also announced several events before they could be confirmed, 
such as the February 10 "retrieval" of the cockpit voice 
recorder (which turned out not to have been retrieved). 
 
¶7. (C) Separately, Minister of Health Jawad Khalifeh publicly 
theorized February 9 that the plane must have exploded in 
midair, since most of the victims, bodies retrieved had been 
dismembered.  (Note:  Investigators quickly ruled out an 
explosion as the cause of the crash.  The NTSB team observed 
that dismemberment was almost guaranteed for a body that hit 
the water at high speed and then spent two weeks in salt 
water inhabited by animal life.  End note.)  Though the 
investigation team found no sign of fire or explosion 
following the accident, Khalifeh only partially retracted his 
statement later, saying the word "'explosion' doesn't imply a 
military act."  Tourism Minister Fadi Abboud, for his part, 
contributed his own analysis to the press before the 
conclusion of the investigation, saying, "According to 
available information, it is believed the airliner was not 
completely burnt..." 
 
POLITICS COMPLICATES THINGS 
--------------------------- 
 
¶8. (C) The free-for-all media announcements from GOL 
ministries partially stemmed from the lack of a single person 
responsible for communicating government information on the 
crash, in addition to the political jockeying common in 
Lebanon's fractured political confessional system.  Civil 
Aviation DG Chaouk, who is a Sunni, told the NTSB's Jones 
that he had denied some "confidential" information to his 
superior, Transportation Minister Aridi (a Druze from the 
Progressive Socialist Party), while feeding information 
directly to Sunni PM Saad Hariri's office.  Pro-opposition 
Amal party Health Minister Khalifeh was also not privy to any 
real-time information on the investigation.  Neither of them 
was barred from speaking to the media, however, and both have 
done so frequently, apparently in efforts to bolster their 
own standing. 
 
CRISIS MANAGEMENT 
----------------- 
 
¶9. (SBU) The crash has made clear to the Lebanese their need 
for some sort of crisis management agency or plan within the 
 
GOL.  President Michel Sleiman told Al-Manar TV, "a permanent 
committee for emergencies and managing crises should be 
formed in case a tragedy similar to (the crash) occurs 
again," while Hizballah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah 
called for the GOL to "provide all logistical means of facing 
any disaster," so that Lebanon would not rely much on foreign 
assistance.  Jones suggested that the GOL pay particular 
attention to its treatment of the families of victims of such 
crises.  Indeed, the families of the victims sat for days at 
the airport with little or no information before heading 
home, and most have received word of the latest developments 
through the press rather than from an official government 
source. 
 
U.S. ASSISTANCE CRUCIAL 
----------------------- 
 
¶10. (C) Lebanon has a bilateral agreement with France to 
assist it following air disasters, and a team from the French 
NTSB-equivalent, the BEA, has been on the ground since a day 
after the crash.  Out of the public eye, however, the GOL has 
relied principally on U.S. assistance since the day of the 
accident, and a variety of officials -- from President 
Sleiman to PM Hariri to Defense Minister Murr to LAF marine 
commandos diving for wreckage -- have thanked their U.S. 
counterparts repeatedly for the help provided.  Embassy 
Defense Attache Office (DAO) and Office of Defense 
Cooperation (ODC) staff were on the scene immediately after 
the crash, assisting the LAF and calling in resources.  When 
the USS Ramage departed Lebanese waters after participating 
in the early search operation, the USNS Grapple and the MDSU 
Two dive team located the flight data recorder and removed 
the largest pieces of debris so that the Lebanese marine 
commandos could retrieve the device.  They later cleared 
additional wreckage that led to the recovery on February 16 
of the cockpit voice recorder.  Jones admitted that he and 
the FAA and Boeing team members had done the heavy lifting on 
the investigation and were essentially writing the report on 
its findings for the Lebanese.  About a week into the salvage 
operation, Jones and his team also became the primary point 
of contact for the LAF officers overseeing the recovery of 
the wreckage, bodies, and flight voice and data recorders, 
serving a vital coordination role in concert with the Embassy 
DAO and ODC. 
 
CONCLUSIONS: ROUGH ROAD 
AHEAD FOR THE ETHIOPIANS 
------------------------ 
 
¶11. (C) The GOL has not yet released its official, 
internationally-mandated report on the likely causes of the 
crash, though DG Chaouk expects to provide a preliminary 
report of the investigation's findings to the Lebanese 
government by February 25.  Jones and his team confided to us 
before they departed Beirut that the investigation report 
will fault the Ethiopian pilots, both of whom were 
inexperienced.  The NTSB representative indicated the may 
incident suggest broader systemic problems at Ethiopian 
Airlines and expects as a result that the NTSB will undertake 
further investigation of the company.  Jones, who has worked 
extensively in Ethiopia, noted that the airline has enjoyed 
an excellent international rating and is a source of pride 
for the Ethiopian government. He expected the investigation 
process to be difficult, and noted that he may return to 
Beirut in the coming week 
SISON