Family members of the passengers and crew who perished aboard Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 gathered to mourn their loved ones at the crash site in Tulu Fara Wereda, some 40Km south of the capital. The mourners wept, wailed and beat their chests in grief and sorrow at their loss by the tragic accident on March 10, 2019. Tents have been set up at the crash site, and the families have been transported to the area by buses, SUVs and other vehicles, some provided by Ethiopian Airlines.
The plane, which crashed within six minutes of takeoff, was flying at a speed of 700Km an hour and started to stall at 8,000ft of elevation.
“We asked for his remains,” said Sahar Biton, who lost his uncle, Shimon Daniel Reem, a security consultant that was travelling to Nairobi, Kenya, on a business trip. “We`re told they could not identify any of the bodies.” Shimon was one of the 157 passengers and crew members from 35 countries on board Boeing 737 Max 8, which departed Bole International Airport early in the morning. Piloted by Captain Yared Getachew, the plane had just arrived from Johannesburg, South Africa, earlier that day. It was in the air for only a few minutes when Captain Yared reported to air traffic controllers that he had lost control. All communications were cut off as the aircraft disappeared from radar, according to Tewolde Gebremarian, Group CEO of Ethiopian. Fully loaded with fuel and flying at 700Km an hour, the plane began to stall at 8,000ft; in the parlance of the industry, the aircraft angle falls and lift decreases.
The wreckage of the aircraft was found 16 metres deep in a hole, the size of a five-storey building, where it had nosedived as it fell from the sky.
The wreckage of the aircraft was found 16 metres deep in a hole, the size of a five-storey building, where it had nosedived as it fell from the sky. There were reportedly no fires burning as the first local people first arrived, “only puffs of smoke,” eyewitnesses said. The same model of Boeing 737 Max 8 flown by Lion Air plunged into the Java Sea killing all the 189 passengers in October 2018. The two aircraft exhibited a similar flight profile before crashing, according to the Federal Aviation Administration of the United States. Regulators and operators in different countries, from China to the United States, have since grounded the particular aircraft model. This comes as no consolation to the survivors of the victims. “My son, whom I love most, was taken away from me,” wailed Getachew Tessema (MD), the father of Captain Yared. Please See the full story here.
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