Six minutes after an early-morning takeoff from Addis Ababa, a Nairobi-bound Boeing 737 crashed on Sunday morning. The crash claimed the lives of 149 passengers, including four Indians and eight crew on board. Ethiopian Airlines have informed that the world leaders have offered condolences to distraught next-of-kin.
Ethiopian Airlines crashes, 157 were on board
Mourning the deaths of thode who died, the carrier CEO Tewolde GebreMariam told journalists in the capital that People holding passports from 32 countries and the UN were on board the plane which ploughed into a field just 60 kilometres (37 miles) southeast of Addis Ababa.
State-owned Ethiopian Airlines which is Africa largest carrier, said that the ill-fated Boeing 737-800MAX had taken off at 8:38 am (local time) from Bole International Airport and “lost contact” six minutes later. Scheduled to land in Nairobi at 10:25 am (0725 GMT), it came down instead near the village of Tulu Fara outside Bishoftu. Ethiopian Airlines confirmed “there are no survivors.”
Ethiopian Airlines have informed that Kenya had the largest number of casualties with 32, followed by Canada with 18, Ethiopia with nine, then Italy, China, and the United States with eight each. Britain and France each had seven people on board, Egypt six, the Netherlands five and India four. There were four UN passport-holders.