A rescue team collect bodies in bags at the crash site of an Ethiopia Airlines plane near Bishoftu, a town 60km southeast of Addis Ababa, yesterday. It crashed en route to Nairobi with 149 passengers and eight crew on board.
Accident happens shortly after takeoff
Nairobi – Procedural search and rescue operations were in progress yesterday after the crash of Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 737 passenger jet killed everyone on board.
All 149 passengers and eight crew members died in the crash shortly after the plane had left Bole airport in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, at 8.38am local time yesterday.
The flight lost contact with the control tower at 8.44 am. “There are no survivors on board the flight, which carried passengers from 33 countries,” said state-run Ethiopian Broadcasting Corporation. Flight ET 302 crashed near the town of Bishoftu, 62km southeast of the capital Addis Ababa, the airline said, adding that the plane was a Boeing 737-800 MAX, registration number ET-AVJ.
That model number does not exist, however aviation websites later identified the plane as a new 737 MAX 8, the same plane that crashed in Indonesia in October, killing 189. “Search and rescue operations are in progress and we have no confirmed information about survivors,” the airline said in a statement. The flight had unstable vertical speed after takeoff, said flight tracking website Flightradar24 on its Twitter feed. At Nairobi airport, many relatives were waiting at the gate, with no information from airport authorities.
“We’re waiting for my mum. We’re just hoping she took a different flight or was delayed. She’s not picking up her
said Wendy Otieno, clutching her phone and weeping.
Robert Mutanda, 46, was waiting for his brother-in-law coming from Canada.
“No, we haven’t seen anyone from the airline or the airport,” he told Reuters at 1pm, three hours after the flight was lost. “Nobody has told us anything, we are just standing here hoping for the best.” On October 29, a Lion Air Boeing 737 MAX 8 crashed into the Java Sea shortly after take-off from Jakarta, killing all 189 people on board. The plane is the latest version
of the 737 family, the world’s best-selling modern passenger aircraft and one of the industry’s most reliable. Ethiopia’s last major crash was in January 2010, when a flight from Beirut went down shortly after take-off. Meanwhile, US aerospace giant Boeing said yesterday it was “deeply saddened” about the deaths of all 157 people aboard Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 and would provide technical assistance to find out why its aircraft crashed. “Boeing is deeply saddened to learn of the passing of the passengers and crew on
Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302, a 737 MAX 8 airplane,” the company said in a statement. “A Boeing technical team is prepared to provide technical assistance .” – Reuters andAFP
‘ ‘ We’re hoping she took a different flight or delayed