Ejere: Ethiopian Airlines has grounded all of its Boeing 737 Max 8 aircraft as “an extra safety precaution” following the crash of one of its planes in which 157 people were killed, a spokesman said on Monday, as Ethiopia marked a day of mourning and the plane’s damaged “black box” of data was found.
Although it wasn’t yet known what caused the crash of the new plane in clear weather outside Addis Ababa on Sunday, the airline decided to ground its remaining four 737 Max 8s until further notice, spokesman Asrat Begashaw said. Ethiopian
Airlines had been using five of the planes and awaiting delivery of 25 more. Some other airlines around the world were deciding to do the same. Aviation authorities in China and Indonesia along with Caribbean carrier Cayman Airways temporarily grounded their Max 8s. Red Cross workers slowly picked through the widely scattered debris near the blackened crash crater, looking for the remains of 157 lives. A shredded book.
A battered passport. Business cards in multiple languages. Heavy machinery dug for larger pieces of the plane. The plane’s “black box” of flight data and cockpit voice recorder had been found, Ethiopian Airlines said. An airline official, however, told AP the box was partially damaged and “we will see what we can retrieve from it”, the official spoke requesting anonymity.
Forensic experts from Israel had arrived to help with the investigation, said Ethiopian Airlines’ spokesman Asrat. Ethiopian authorities lead the investigation into the crash, assisted by the US, Kenya and others. These kinds of things take time,” Kenya’s transport minister, James Macharia, told reporters. Ethiopian Airlines said the senior pilot issued a distress call and was told to return but all contact was lost shortly afterward.
The plane plowed into the ground at Hejere near Bishoftu. “I heard this big noise,” one local resident, Tsegaye Reta, told the AP on Monday. “The villagers said it was a plane crash, and we rushed to the site. There was a huge smoke that we couldn’t even see the plane. The parts of the plane were falling apart.”
