Condolences poured in on Twitter after an Ethiopian Airlines jet plunged into the Mediterranean minutes after its take off from Beirut, Lebanon. All 90 people on board are presumed dead after the plane caught fire during a lightning storm and crashed into the sea.

@tsepeaces retweets an eye witness as saying:

RT @patrickgaley: Eyewitness Naame “We saw an explosion in the sky like the sun, it was there for seconds then vanished into darkness”#ET409

He also tweets:

The plane was a ball of flame for a second – these are haunting words :-/ #ET409 May they all Rest in Peace!

Daily Star reporter and Huffington Post blogger Patrick Galey quotes a Lebanese man who lost 10  friends on board the flight:

Fouad Shihab, 10 friends on board: “I was meant to be on that plane and look what happened. All my friends are dead.”

In an earlier tweet, he writes:

Just returned from Rafiq Hariri airport, scenes there are terrible. No information, spoke with people who have lost entire family

Hichame Assi  (@hiconomics) writes:

Very sad to hear about #ET409… I hope it's as painless as possible to all family and friends. Allah Yer7am (May God have mercy on them)

Georges Azzi, who has been following the coverage on television, wasn't impressed and tweeted:

Lebanon: too many TV Stations= too much airtime #et409 #coverage switching into sensational and fictional mode #fail

Samer, who tweets @meetsamer, also expressed outrage at Lebanese media saying:

Lebanese media has no decency or any sense of ethics, they're already referring to the missing ppl as “dead” #ET409 #Lebanon

Amer Tabsh (@arzleb)  shares similar sentiments and writes:

LBC (Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation) analysis of the #ET409 is very stupid and wrongful #fail

He also shares the hotline number for information and inquires on the crash:

Hotline 71207326 for info & inquiries by the Victims families / Hotline 1701 to inform of any wreckage of bodies sighting #ET409 #Lebanon

Meanwhile, Tala is shaken by the news and tweets:

25 bodies have been taken out of the water, 2 of them were children. And they hardly identify any of them. R.I.P #ET409

CNN's Cal Perry was also tweeting and in one message says:

Such a sad day #et409 – tomorrow we'll try to get down to the beach. Tonight's piece from the airport. PM Hariri trying his best to console

Nathan Redd is in agony and writes:

I seriously cannot concentrate on anything today. #ET409 is the only thing on my mind today. My heart is broken.

And @nightS sums up the day saying:

It's a very sad and horrible day :( #ET409