Friday 19 / April / 2024
Muscat: Ethiopian Airlines has grounded all Boeing 737-8 planes following a crash involving one of their planes, in which all those on board have reportedly lost their lives.
Also read: Ethiopian Airlines plane crash – no survivors, rescue operations continue
Flight ET 302 was flying from Addis Ababa to Nairobi in Kenya and took off at 8:38 am on the morning of Sunday, 10 February, but was reported to have crashed just six minutes later. It carried 149 passengers and eight flight crew on board, from across 35 countries.
A statement by Ethiopian Airlines read, “Following the tragic accident of ET 302/10 March B-737-8 Max (ET-AVJ), Ethiopian Airlines has decided to ground all B-737-8 MAX fleet effective March 10/2019 until further notice.
“Although we don’t yet know the cause of the accident, we had to decide to ground the particular fleet as an extra safety precaution,” the statement added.
Furthermore, the Civil Aviation Administration of China has decided to ground all such airplanes until further notice.
According to the administration, this crash “was the second air disaster in the Boeing 737-8 aircraft following the October 29th Indonesian Lion Air accident.
“In light of the fact that the two air crashes occurred on newly delivered Boeing 737-8 aircraft, and that they both occurred during the take-off phase, they have certain similarities," said that statement.
In line with the management principle of zero tolerance for safety hazards and strict control of safety risks, and in order to ensure flight security for Chinese civil aviation, the Civil Aviation administration issued a notice at 9am (5am in Muscat) on March 11 requesting that domestic transportation airlines suspend the commercial operation of the Boeing 737-8 aircraft before 18:00 on March 11, 2019.
