An Ethiopian Airline Boeing 737-700 aircraft takes off from Felix Houphouet-Boigny Airport in Abidjan on November 28, 2017. Photo: AFP
NEWSROOM (ADV) – An Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 737 passenger jet has c*rashed on a flight from Addis Ababa to Nairobi in Kenya.
The flight is believed to have had 149 passengers and eight crew members on board, the airline says.
The airline said the a*ccident occurred around Bishoftu (Debre Zeit) area where it lost contact six minutes after take off.
A spokesman said the crash happened at 08.44 local times on Sunday, shortly after take-off from the Ethiopian capital.
First word of the c*rash came when Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed expressed his “deepest condolences” on Twitter.
But the airline was more guarded in its first statement on the c*rash, only saying “search and rescue operations are in progress and we have no confirmed information about s*urvivors or any possible c*asualties.”
Boeing, the company that built the airplane, said in a tweet that it was “closely monitoring the situation”.
Its 737 Max-8 aircraft is relatively new to the skies, having been launched in 2016. It was added to the Ethiopian Airlines fleet late last year.