Aviation

Ethiopian Airlines: ‘No survivors’ on crashed Boeing 737

Published

6 years ago

March 11, 2019

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All passengers on board an Ethiopian Airlines jet that crashed shortly after take-off on Sunday have died, the airline says.

It said 149 passengers and eight crew members were believed to be on flight ET302 from Addis Ababa to Nairobi in Kenya.

The airline added that there were 33 different nationalities on board.

The crash happened at 08.44 local time, six minutes after the flight took off from the Ethiopian capital.

It is not yet clear what caused the accident.

The first word of the crash came when Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed expressed his “deepest condolences” on Twitter.

In an earlier statement, the airline said that search and rescue operations were underway near the crash site around the town of Bishoftu, which is 60km (37 miles) south-east of the capital.

“Ethiopian Airlines staff will be sent to the accident scene and will do everything possible to assist the emergency services,” the statement added.

Boeing, the company that built the aeroplane, said in a tweet that it was “closely monitoring the situation”.

Its 737 Max-8 aircraft is relatively new to the skies, having been launched in 2016. It was added to the Ethiopian Airlines fleet in July last year.

Another plane of the same model was involved in a crash five months ago when a Lion Air flight crashed into the sea near Indonesia with nearly 190 people on board.