The Ethiopian Plane Crash: Many Theories, Few Answers

What are the reasons for the crash of Ethiopian Airlines flight 409 south of Beirut? The most logical explanation is that the crash was due to bad weather, especially considering that the plane took off in the middle of a storm.

However, the eyewitness reports that claim that the plane went down in a ball of fire and the fact that the pilots did not contact the control tower, seem to contradict the weather theory. If such report are true, then the weather theory becomes highly unlikely. Bad weather does not cause a plane to suddenly ignite on take-off.

Further, Ethiopian Airlines are the safest airline in Africa, and one of the safest in the world. The 2 fatal incidents involving the airline in recent history include a bird strike, and a hijacking.

There are more likely reasons for the plane to ignite:

1. One of the two engines caught fire due to mechanical failure, or even sabotage, causing the plane to lose its lift and crash in the Mediterranean. Since this happened early after take-off, the pilots may not have had time to send a mayday to the air controllers.
   
   
2. A bomb on board the plane caused it to ignite and crash. But who would want to crash an Ethiopian airliner? Al Qaida perhaps, because of Ethiopia's role in Somalia?
   
   
3. The plane was hit by some sort of ordnance, either ground or air fire. Again why would someone want to down the Ethiopian airliner? Was it a case of mistaken identity? Hezbollah has been rumored lately of testing AA missiles, did they launch a missile at the wrong time?
   
   
4. The plane hit some flying object, an Israeli drone maybe, or a bird. But this is quite unlikely, precisely because of the weather conditions at the time.
   

There are certainly more questions than answers at this time. The recovery from the shallow waters south of Beirut of the "black boxes", the plane's fuselage and engines, should go a long way in uncovering the causes of this tragic loss of life.

Justice Ministry Building About to Collapse

This story is not new, but another set of experts have once again declared that the building housing the Justice Ministry is structurally unsound and may collapse in the near future.

Judges, lawyers and their staffers have been aware of this fact for years. But the succeeding governments had better things to do than worry about the imminent collapse of the center of Lebanese Justice.

The bottom line is that we don't need magnitude 7.0 earthquakes to destroy our infrastructure. We can do a much more predictable job ourselves.

Abou Moussa - Outrage of the Week

Said Moussa, better know by his nom de guerre "Abou Moussa", rejected yesterday the disarmament of Palestinian militia outside the refugee camps."This is solely a Palestinian decision and not in the hands of any other power," he added.

It is an outrage that a Palestinian dictates what happens on Lebanese soil, and the bigger outrage is that there was no noticeable response by the Lebanese government. Only the Kataeb party expressed its indignation over the statement.

Palestinian weapons in Lebanon have sown death and destruction since the 50's, and especially during the Lebanese war that started in 1975 killing and maiming hundreds of thousands of Lebanese. Those weapons have also caused the death of thousands of Palestinians during inter-Palestinian clashes. A number of Palestinian militias maintain weapons in Palestinian refugee camps under a de facto agreement dating back to the 1960's. A fewer number of factions, including Gibril's terrorist organization (PFLP) and Abu Mussa's Fatah al Intifada.

What is quite mysterious is why are these organizations allowed to keep their weapons when all militias were disarmed in 1990? As a result, we have in Lebanon a number of militias that militarily control their fiefdoms inside sovereign Lebanese territory, including the various Palestinian factions mostly in the Bekaa and South, and Hizbollah over most of Lebanon.

The Lebanese government needs to take immediate action against Abu Mussa's militia and other Palestinian groups outside of the camps if it is to maintain any semblance of credibility. Dealing with Palestinian weapons in the camps is more politically and militarily difficult and can be undertaken at a later stage.

If no action is taken,  other Lebanese factions will be compelled to re-arm, leading to a dangerous race to building the same militias that brought Lebanon's downfall in the 70's through the 90's.

Haiti: A Wake-Up Call for Lebanon

The earthquake that has hit Haiti had devastating consequences on this impoverished, small nation. The imagery that's emerging is unbearable to watch. What made the devastation worse are the substandard building practices common in Haiti, and the fact that the infrastructure itself was devastated. The government and other services that should have taken care of the victims were themselves almost annihilated by the quake.

Haiti's tragedy should serve as a wake-up call to Lebanon's institutions to be prepared for a similar occurrence. Lebanon lies on a number of active fault lines and the occurrence of a major earthquake is a matter of time.

How would Lebanon fare if a 7 magnitude quake hit Beirut? Would the airport and seaport remain operational to receive foreign aid? Would the hospitals remain operational? Would the water, electricity and telecommunications networks survive?
And who could coordinate the rescue and recovery efforts? Would that entity and its capabilities survive the quake?

According to seismologists, Lebanon is overdue for a significant quake. The frequent tremors felt some time ago in the Tyre area are only a reminder that Lebanon is also seismically unstable. The major known faults are the Roum fault in  the South which has been most recently active (and was behind the deadly quake of 1956), the Yammouneh fault in the Bekaa which has been dormant, and the most worrisome is the underwater fault that's 4 kilometers off Beirut and was responsible for a Tsunami that destroyed the city in 551 A.D. There is no telling when any of these faults will cause a massive quake that could devastate the country.

The government needs to setup a disaster recovery plan, a plan that would assess the survivability of critical infrastructure and institutions, designate alternatives and most importantly set a minimum standard for an earthquake-resistant code for new constructions.

The clock is ticking, and one day it will be too late.