Aviation

DNA testing of Ethiopian Airline victims to take six months

Published

7 years ago

March 18, 2019

Ethiopian Airlines said on Saturday that DNA testing of the remains of the 157 passengers on Board Flight 302 may take up to six months as it offered bereaved families charred earth from the plane crash site to bury.

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

As families wait for the results from the investigation into the cause of the crash, Ethiopian Airlines is planning to hold a service on Sunday in Addis Ababa, at the Kidist Selassie, or Holy Trinity Cathedral, where many of the country’s past rulers are buried beneath its pink stone spires.

The grounding of Boeing’s 737 max jets after the crash in Ethiopia has had no immediate financial impact on airlines using the planes, but the U.S. plane maker has been working on a software upgrade for an anti-stall system and pilot displays on its fastest-selling jetliner in the wake of the deadly lion air crash.