An Ethiopian Airlines flight carrying 149 passengers and eight crew crashed on Sunday morning killing all on board, the airline said.
The aircraft, a Boeing 737 MAX 8 with flight number ET 302, took off from the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa at 08.38am and lost contact with air traffic controllers six minutes later. The aircraft, which was heading to Nairobi, went down near Bishoftu, south-east of Addis Ababa, the airline said in a statement.
The carrier’s chief executive, Tewolde Gebremariam, visited the accident scene and confirmed that there were no survivors. The airline provided no further information about the reasons for the crash.
Ethiopia’s prime minister Abiy Ahmed expressed his sympathies to the victims of Sunday’s crash via Twitter.
“The Office of the PM, on behalf of the Government and people of Ethiopia, would like to express its deepest condolences to the families of those that have lost their loved ones”, he said.
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African aviation had been improving its safety record over the past few years, according to data from the International Air Transport Association. Between 2016 and 2018, Africa had no major jet accidents, Iata said, compared with an industry average of 0.19 per million flights in 2018.
Before 2016, African aviation’s safety record had been chequered, with a six-year global high of 3.53 major jet accidents per million flights in 2015.
The Express News
