Crash of Ethiopian Airlines Flight 409: despite release of official report, doubts still subsist

Surrounded by a veil of mystery that gave rise to multiple controversies, the crash of Ethiopian Airlines Flight 409 off the coast of Beirut, on 25 January 2010, killed all 90 people on board.
The Lebanese Transport Ministry has just issued its final report on the drama, concluding a pilot error was to blame without, however, providing any concrete evidence, such as a cockpit recording for example. Ethiopian Airlines sharply dismissed the report conclusions, arguing that, on the basis of eyewitness accounts, an explosion either of human origin (shooting or sabotage) or accidental (lightning) was the cause of the in-flight dislocation of the aircraft, after inexplicably veering off course, which neither thesis can account for.

Considering that, as far as we know, lightning never caused a plane to crash, it is clear that the company is definitely leaning in favor of the terrorist act scenario. That is indeed also the opinion of the Mauritanian website elhourriya.net ("Freedom"), which on 21 December 2011 published an article reporting on a large Israeli spy ring managed by Arab businessmen which was uncovered in Mauritania. The investigation, affirms the website, unearthed a letter written by one of the agents linked to the spy network, a Jordanian of Palestinian origin. Again according to elhourriya.net, the letter, which was addressed to the Embassy of the United Arab Emirates in Mauritania, claims that the Mossad was the sponsor of the assassination of Hezbollah’s Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Dubai in 2010 as well as of a bomb attack against Ethiopian Airlines flight 409.

Moreover, Lebanese television channel Al Manar was similarly baffled by a number of disturbing elements. Besides the lack of recorded telephone conversations in the cockpit just before the crash, it noted that the debris and condition of the bodies (shredded but still strapped to their seats) were consistent with an explosion in flight; finally it underlined the fact that the Lebanese government had excluded all Lebanese personnel from the search operations, when the country was in a position to supply the required specialists and equipment.