‘Charred earth’ burial for jet dead

● Ethiopian Airlines said yesterday that DNA testing of the remains of the 157 passengers on board flight 302 might take up to six months. It offered bereaved families charred earth from the crash site to bury.

A team of investigators in Paris has begun examining the black box recorders recovered from the site where the Boeing 737 Max 8 aircraft crashed into a field last Sunday after taking off from Addis Ababa. Passengers from more than 30 nations were aboard.

Among those killed was Lesotho-born Max Thabiso Edkins, who held dual German-South African nationality. Edkins worked as a climate expert for the World Bank.

Ethiopian Airlines is planning to hold a service today in Addis Ababa, at the Kidist Selassie, or Holy Trinity Cathedral, where many of the country’s past rulers are buried.

“We were told by the company that we will be given a kilo [of earth] each for burial at Selassie church for a funeral they will organise,” said a family member.

Papers given to the families yesterday said death certificates would be issued within two weeks, and an initial payment made to cover immediate expenses.

The return of remains — most of which were charred and fragmented — would take up to six months, the papers said, but in the meantime earth from the crash site would be given to relatives.

Abdulmajid Sheriff, a Kenyan whose Yemeni brother-in-law died in the crash, said they had already held a service.

“We are Muslims; we didn’t care about that [earth],” he said.

Experts say it is too soon to know what caused the crash, but aviation authorities worldwide have grounded Boeing’s 737 Max aircraft.

Flight data has indicated some similarities with a crash by the same model of aircraft in Indonesia last October in which all 189 on board died.