An Ethiopian Airlines flight crashed shortly after takeoff from the capital Sunday morning killing all 157 thought to be on board, according to statements from the airline and the state broadcaster. There were no immediate details on what caused the crash of the Boeing 737-8 MAX plane, which was new and had been delivered to the airline in November. The state-owned Ethiopian Airlines, widely considered the best-managed airline in Africa, calls itself Africa's largest carrier and has ambitions of becoming the gateway to the continent. The airline's statement said 149 passengers and eight crew members were thought to be on the plane that crashed six minutes after departing Addis Ababa on its way to Kenya's capital. The crash occurred around Bishoftu, or Debre Zeit, some 50 kilometers (31 miles) south of Addis Ababa, at 8:44 a.m. While the airline said "search and rescue operations are in progress and we have no confirmed information about survivors or any possible casualties," a separate statement by the Ethiopian prime minister's office offered its "deepest condolences" to families. State broadcaster EBC reported all passengers were dead and that the passengers included 33 nationalities. An Ethiopian Airlines spokesman said 32 Kenyans and 17 Ethiopians were among the victims. James Macharia, Kenya's transport minister, told reporters that Kenyan authorities had not yet received the passenger manifest. He said an emergency response had been set up for family and friends. "My prayers go to all the families and associates of those on board," Kenya's President Uhuru Kenyatta said, as many Kenyans braced for the worst. Records show that the plane was new. The Planespotters civil aviation database shows that the Boeing 737-8 MAX was delivered to Ethiopian Airlines in mid-November. In October, another Boeing 737-8 MAX plunged into the Java Sea just minutes after taking off from Jakarta, Indonesia's capital, killing all 189 people on board. The cockpit data recorder showed that the jet's airspeed indicator had malfunctioned on its last four flights, though Lion Air initially claimed that problems with the aircraft had been fixed. The last deadly crash of an Ethiopian Airlines passenger plane was in 2010, when the plane crashed minutes after takeoff from Beirut killing all 90 people on board. Sunday's crash comes as the country's reformist prime minister, Abiy Ahmed, has vowed to open up the airline and other sectors to foreign investment in a major transformation of the state-centered economy. Ethiopian Airlines has been expanding assertively, recently opening a route to Moscow and in January inaugurating a new passenger terminal in Addis Ababa to triple capacity. Speaking at the inauguration, the prime minister challenged the airline to build a new "Airport City" terminal in Bishoftu — where Sunday's crash occurred. Source: AP AH

All 189 passengers and crew aboard a crashed Indonesian Lion Air jet were “likely” killed in the accident, the search and rescue agency said Monday, as it announced it had found human remains. The Boeing-737 MAX, which went into service just months ago, vanished from radar 13 minutes after taking off from Jakarta, plunging into the Java Sea moments after it had asked to be allowed to return to the Indonesian capital. Reports AFP. Websites that display flight data showed the plane speeding up as it suddenly lost altitude in the minutes before it disappeared. “My prediction is that nobody survived because the victims that we found, their bodies were no longer intact and it’s been hours so it is likely 189 people have died,” search and rescue agency operational director Bambang Suryo Aji told reporters. Some 40 divers are part of about 150 personnel at the scene, authorities said, with the plane in water about 30 to 40 meters deep. Earlier, video footage apparently filmed at the scene of the crash showed a slick of fuel on the surface of the water and pictures showed what appeared to be an emergency slide and bits of wreckage bearing Lion Air’s logo. The carrier acknowledged that the jet had previously been grounded for unspecified repairs. The plane had been en route to Pangkal Pinang city, a jumping off point for beach-and-sun seeking tourists on nearby Belitung island, when it dropped out of contact around 6.30 am (2330 GMT). It was not yet known if there were any foreigners on board. Images filmed at Pangkal Pinang’s main airport showed families of passengers crying and hugging each other, with some yelling “Oh God”. “This morning he called asking about our youngest son,” said a sobbing Ermayati, referring to her 45-year-old husband Muhammed Syafii, who was on board. Indonesia’s National Transportation Safety Committee (NTSC) said there were 178 adult passengers, one child, two infants, two pilots and six cabin crew on board flight JT 610. The transport ministry had initially said there was a total of 188 people on board. The finance ministry said around 20 of its employees were on the plane. Among them were half a dozen colleagues of Sony Setiawan, who was supposed to be on the flight but missed check in due to bad traffic. “I know my friends were on that flight,” he told AFP. Setiawan said he was only informed about his lucky escape after he arrived in Pangkal Pinang on another flight at 9:40am. “My family was in shock and my mother cried, but I told them I was safe, so I just have to be grateful.” Lion Air said the plane had only gone into service in August. The pilot and co-pilot had more than 11,000 hours of flying time between them and had recent medical checkups and drug testing, it added. Lion Air CEO Edward Sirait said the plane had an unspecified technical issue fixed in Bali before it was flown back to Jakarta. “Engineers in Jakarta received notes and did another repair before it took off” on Monday, Edward Sirait told AFP, calling it “normal procedure”. - Poor safety record – US-based Boeing said it was “deeply saddened” by news of the crash. Boeing, just days out from its first commercial delivery of the 737 MAX in May last year, reportedly suspended its release due to an engine issue, according to airline safety and product review site airlineratings.com. It said the engines were a product of a joint venture between US-based General Electric and France’s Safran Aircraft Engines. Earlier this year, Lion Air announced it was buying 50 Boeing 737 MAX 10 jets for $6.24 billion. Indonesia’s air travel industry is booming, with the number of domestic passengers growing significantly over the past decade, but it has acquired a reputation for poor regulation and its airlines had once been banned from US and European airspace. In August 2015, a commercial passenger aircraft operated by Indonesian carrier Trigana crashed in Papua due to bad weather, killing all 54 people on board. In 2014, poor maintenance and the pilots’ inadequate response was blamed for the crash of an AirAsia plane crashed with the loss of 162 lives. Lion, a low-cost airline which has engaged in a huge expansion in recent years, has been involved in a number of incidents including a fatal 2004 crash and a collision between two Lion Air planes at Jakarta’s Soekarno-Hatta airport. AH

The Blackbox of the US-Bangla Airlines crashed aircraft at Kathmandu in Nepal has been recovered, reports the news agency Reuters, quoting a senior official at Tribhuvan Airport. Meanwhile, the US-Bangla Airlines and Tribhuvan Airport authorities have raised fingers at each other over the cause of the accident. Nepalese authorities said that Flight 211 was commanded to be landing from the south side of the runway but the pilot landed from the north. However, the US-Bangla Airlines denied Nepalese authorities' claim by saying that the pilot had received a wrong direction from the control tower. But this complexity will be opened very soon as the 'Blackbox' of the aircraft has been recovered. The real reason for the plane crash will come to light depending on this. A Blackbox is a flight recorder an electronic recording device placed in an aircraft for the purpose of facilitating the investigation of aviation accidents and incidents. The “black box” is made up of two separate pieces of equipment: the flight data recorder (FDR) and a cockpit voice recorder (CVR). They are compulsory on any commercial flight or corporate jet, and are usually kept in the tail of an aircraft, where they are more likely to survive a crash. FDR records at least 88 required parameters about the flight, including airspeed, altitude, rudder position, wheel position and air pressure. CVR records everything the folks in the front cabin are talking about! While the old magnetic-tape versions could store up to 30 minutes of talk at a time, the current digital recorders can record up to two hours (which, honestly, still seems low). Once those two hours is reached, the CVR records over old material. One more interesting fact: recorders were originally housed in the cockpit along with the instruments and the pilots. Only after several accidents where the Flight Data Recorder was not recoverable did they get moved to the rear of the aircraft, based on the presumption that following the initial impact, the rear of the aircraft would be moving at a slower speed. In addition, the units initially only had to withstand a 100gs impact which was increased to 1000gs. The plane crashed in Nepal's capital Kathmandu's Tribhuvan International Airport on Wednesday, had 71 passengers with 4 crew and 67 passengers. Among them 50 died. Reuters also said that the Canadian manufacturer company of the crashed plane Bombardier sent an Air Safety Investigator and a Field Service Representative for assistance in the investigation process. FU