Ethiopia's Boeing 737 crashes, killing all 157 people aboard
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An Ethiopian flight to Nairobi has crashed with 149 onboard passengers and eight crew members
An Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 737 passenger jet to Nairobi crashed early on Sunday with 149 passengers and eight crew members aboard, the airline said, and there were no survivors, according to the state broadcaster.
The flight left Bole airport in Addis Ababa at 8.38 am local time, before losing contact with the control tower just a few minutes later at 8.44 am.
"There are no survivors on board the flight, which carried passengers from 33 countries," said state-run Ethiopian Broadcasting Corporation, quoting an unidentified source at the airline.
Flight ET 302 crashed near the town of Bishoftu, 62 kilometers southeast of the capital Addis Ababa, the airline said, adding that the plane was a Boeing 737-800 MAX, registration number ET-AVJ.
That model number does not exist however and multiple aviation websites later identified the plane as a new 737 MAX 8, the same plane that crashed in Indonesia in October, killing 189.
"Search and rescue operations are in progress and we have no confirmed information about survivors or any possible casualties," the airline said in a statement.
The flight had unstable vertical speed after takeoff, said flight tracking website Flightradar24 on its Twitter feed.
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