Ryanair may have owned doomed Ethiopian Airlines jet

The chief executive at Ryanair, Michael O’Leary, has admitted that the carrier may have sold the Ethiopian Airlines plane that came down on Monday morning. The announcement comes after a search and rescue mission for possible survivors has ended off the coast of Lebanon.

The flight that was carrying 90 passengers and crew crashed shortly after take-off from Beirut airport amid severe weather conditions. The coast was being battered by strong winds and heavy rain and the mountains in the regions were being covered with heavy snowfall. The search is still underway for the flight data recorder to help accident investigators discover the cause of the plane ditching into the Mediterranean Sea.

The Irish Aviation Authority has confirmed that the Ethiopian Airlines jet did belong to Ryanair before being sold on. It had completed 17,500 flying hours for the Dublin based carrier, in seven years of service. Plane spotters have also come forward to say they have photographs of the jet, with serial number 29935, in Ryanair colours from 2002 onwards. Mr O’Leary has denied the airline has any liability in the crash and likened it to selling a car adding that if the new owner has a crash 11 months later, it is not the previous owners fault.

The pilot of the plane, which was heading to Addis Ababa, is thought to have ignored the control tower’s recommended route and flew directly towards the storm. Officials in Lebanon said that he made an unusual turn before he was lost from the radar.