An Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 737-800 airliner with 90 people on board crashed into the sea shortly after leaving Beirut in bad weather early on Monday.

Here are some details of the type of plane involved.

DESCRIPTION

The Boeing 737-800 is among the most recent versions of the 737, a family of single-aisle aircraft in service since 1968 and often described as the workhorse of short- and medium-haul aviation alongside the competing Airbus A320 series.

The 737-800 is part of the second or next generation of 737s in production since the 1990s. The 737-800 model entered service in 1998.

Ethiopian Airlines does not own any 737-800s, according to the website of Chicago-based Boeing, but the airline was reported last year to have leased two such planes.

AIRCRAFT DETAILS

Passenger capacity (2-class) 162
(1-class) 189

Flight crew 2

Length 129 feet 6 inches (39.5 metres)

Max wing span 117 ft 5 in (35.8 m)

Interior cabin width 11 ft 7 in (3.53 m)

Emergency exits: 8 (2 in the front, 4 in the middle, 2 in the back)

Range 3,060 nautical miles/5,665 kilometres

Engines Two CFM56-7 engines

(Engines made by CFM International, a joint venture between General Electric Aviation of the United States and Snecma, a unit of French conglomerate Safran.)

PRODUCTION

First delivery 1998

Boeing has built a total of 1,792 737-800s.

A further 1,384 remain on order plus a handful for VIP use.

PRICE

The Boeing list price for a new aircraft is $66-75 million.

SAFETY RECORD

The crash is the fifth accident involving the loss of a Boeing 737-800, according to the Flight Safety Foundation (www.aviation-safety.net).

In February 2009, a Turkish Airlines Boeing 737-800 with 135 people aboard crashed in light fog while trying to land in Amsterdam, killing nine people.

In 2006 a Gol-operated 737-800 collided in mid-air with a business jet, killing 154 people, and in 2007 a Kenya Airways nose-dived into the ground shortly after take-off at Douala airport in Cameroon, costing 114 lives. (Reporting by Tim Hepher)