Ethiopian women mourn the death of a relative killed in the Ethiopian Airlines crash. The plane reportedly veered off course

The pilot of an Ethiopian Airlines plane that crashed into the sea flew in the opposite direction from the path recommended by the control tower after taking off from Beirut in a storm, Lebanon's transport minister said today.

All 90 people on board were killed when the plane went down in flames minutes after takeoff at around 2:30am yesterday, during a night of lightning and thunderstorms.

The minister, Ghazi Aridi, said the pilot initially followed the tower's guidance, but then abruptly changed course and went in the opposite direction.

"They asked him to correct his path but he did a very fast and strange turn before disappearing completely from the radar," Aridi said.

It was not immediately clear why the pilot veered off the recommended path. Like most other airliners, the Boeing 737 is equipped with its own weather radar, which the pilot may have used rather than following the flight tower's recommendation.

"Nobody is saying the pilot is to blame for not heeding orders," Aridi said, adding: "There could have been many reasons for what happened … Only the black box can tell."

Lebanese officials have ruled out terrorism or sabotage on the flight, which was bound for the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa.

No survivors had been found more than 24 hours after the crash. Emergency workers have pulled bodies from the sea.

Searchers were trying to find the plane's flight data recorder, which is critical to determining the cause of the crash.

Rescue teams and equipment sent from the UN and countries including the US and Cyprus were helping in the search.

Pieces of the plane and other debris were washing ashore, and emergency crews pulled a large piece of the plane, about a metre long, from the water. A crew member, Safi Sultaneh, identified it as a piece of wing.

The Lebanese army and witnesses say the plane was on fire shortly after takeoff. A defence official also said some witnesses reported that the plane broke up into three pieces.

At the Government hospital in Beirut, Red Cross workers brought in bodies covered with wool blankets as relatives gathered nearby. Marla Pietton, wife of the French ambassador to Lebanon, was among those on board, according to the French embassy.