UPDATES WITH BLACK BOX FOUND, NEW DECK; EDITS THROUGHOUT
ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia (AA) – Ethiopian Airlines said Monday it has decided to ground its Boeing-737-8 Max fleet after one of the planes crashed a day earlier, killing all 157 people on board.
The Nairobi, Kenya-bound plane crashed Sunday six minutes after it took off from the Addis Ababa Bole International Airport.
“Following the tragic accident of ET-302 … Ethiopian Airlines has decided to ground all B-737-8 MAX fleet effective yesterday March 10, 2019 until further notice,” the airline said in a statement.
“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, ” it added.
In a related development, the Black Box of the crashed plane has been recovered, the airline announced.
In a news briefing yesterday, Tewolde Gebremariam, the airline's CEO, said they had received the brand-new plane last November and before the crash it had faced no technical problems.
