The crash of the Boeing 737 near Addis Ababa

The plane was a Boeing 737 MAX 8 ^[8] , registration number ET-AVJ, serial number 62450, serial 7243. It made its first flight on October 30, 2018, and entered Ethiopian Airlines on November 15 of the same year. It was equipped with two CFM International LEAP-1B turbofan engines . On the day of the disaster, he made 382 take-off and landing cycles and flew 1330 hours. ^[9]

• The aircraft commander is 29-year-old Yared Getacheu. At the FAC, the Boeing 737-800 was qualified in November 2017, at the FAC the Boeing 737 MAX 8 from July 2018. It flew 8122 hours. At the time of the crash, he was the youngest crew commander at Ethiopian Airlines.
• The co - pilot is the 25-year-old Ahmed Nur Mohammod Nur ( born Ahmed Nur Mohammod Nur ). Flown 361 hours.

In the cabin, 6 stewardesses worked.

Onboard were citizens of 36 countries ^[10] . Three passengers were from Russia ^[11] (two of whom worked at Sberbank Leasing ^[12] , another was a parachute instructor from Tver ). Among the passengers on the flight were delegates to the UN Environment Assembly, whose meeting was scheduled for March 11 in Nairobi. On board were the family (spouse, son and daughter) of the deputy of the Slovak parliament , the Italian archaeologist ^[13] , as well as professor at Carleton University ^[14] .

The plane took off from Addis Ababa at 08:38 local time (05:38 UTC ) with 149 passengers and 8 crew members on board. A minute after takeoff, the aircraft commander reported problems with control, but decided to continue the flight; three minutes after takeoff, the plane reached a sufficient distance from the airport and requested permission for an emergency landing in Addis Ababa, while air traffic controllers had already started sending other landing flights to the second round.

At 08:44, the plane disappeared from the radar screens and crashed six minutes after takeoff. Before the crash, it reached an altitude of about 2700 meters above sea level. Flight tracking data showed that the altitude of the aircraft, as well as the rate of climb and descent, fluctuated sharply. Several witnesses stated that white smoke was reaching for the plane and made strange noises before it crashed. Flight 302 crashed near the city of Bishoft, 62 kilometers southeast of the Bole International Airport. In the photographs of the scene of the incident, a large crater with small pieces of debris is visible. All people on board died.

(ECAA) is responsible for investigating civil aviation incidents in the country. Boeing has expressed its willingness to engage with the US National Transportation Safety Council and to assist Ethiopian Airlines ^[15] . The US Federal Aviation Administration ( FAA ) is also supporting the investigation ^[16] .

Both voice recorders and voice recorders were discovered at the crash site and evacuated on March 11, 2019 ^[17] . Contrary to the request of the United States, which insisted on sending recorders to the United States for research, the Ethiopian Airlines management told the media that they decided to send both recorders to European experts ^[18] . Representatives of the German Federal Bureau of Aviation Accident Investigation reported that they refused to analyze the contents of the recorders because they did not have the necessary software for this type of aircraft ^[19] .

The Civil Aviation Safety Investigation and Analysis Bureau (BEA, France) expressed its willingness to investigate the data of the crash aircraft recorders ^[20] . As a result, the registrars were delivered to BEA on March 14, 2019 ^[21] .

On March 17, 2019, Ethiopian Minister of Transport Dagmavit Moges announced that the “black boxes” are in satisfactory condition, allowing them to extract the data they have almost completely. According to preliminary data, according to the first data of the parametric recorder, they show a high degree of similarity with the data of Lion Air Flight 610 , crashed in Indonesia. Ethiopian authorities plan to publish more detailed information within a month ^[22] .

On March 13, 2019, the FAA announced that, according to new evidence from the crash site and satellite data for flight 302, the plane could have experienced problems similar to those that led to the crash of the 610 Lion Air flight. Investigators found that the helical gear, which controls the angle of inclination of the horizontal stabilizer of flight 302, was in the “dive” position. This suggests that during the crash of the plane of the plane, flights 302 were switched to a sharp decline mode, similar to flight 610 Lion Air Flight ^[23] . In connection with these findings, some Indonesian experts recommended the National Transport Safety Committee of Indonesia (KNKT) to work more closely with investigators on the crash of Flight 302 ^[24] . Later, KNKT offered assistance to a group of investigators on Flight 302, stating that the committee plans to send investigators and government representatives to assist in the investigation of the crash ^[25] . On March 19, 2019, U.S. Secretary of Transportation Elaine Chao sent a memorandum to the Inspector General US Department of Transportation requesting an audit of the objectives and stages of certification of an aircraft type for the Boeing 737 MAX 8. Boeing requested changes to the type certificate in January 2012 and, as a result, the FAA approved the type certificate in March 2017 ^[26] .

Two different sources familiar with the investigation told ABS News on April 4, 2019 that the plane could have been damaged by the angle of attack sensor during take-off as a result of a collision with a bird or foreign object. This could lead to an erroneous activation of the MCAS system. ^[27] According to the same sources, with the start of the dive, the pilots did not try to stop the dive using existing electronic systems, until emergency procedures of the “runaway stabilizer” (power off) were performed. There is evidence that the pilots tried to change the position of the stabilizer using mechanical means, but soon they again activated the power of the stabilizer and were no longer able to gain control of the aircraft until the crash.

The ECAA released a preliminary report on April 4, 2019. ^[28]

The Aviation Herald reports that the version of Section 2.6 of the Flight Operations Manual, "Operational Irregularities" used by Ethiopian Airlines at the time of the crash, dated 11/01/2017 and did not include materials from the operator's bulletin issued by Boeing on 11/06/2018. ^[29]

After the crash, airlines suspended the operation of their Boeing 737 MAX 8. Airspace for this type of aircraft was closed by the countries of the European Union , Australia , Malaysia , Singapore , Oman ^[30] as well as the United States ^[31] and Russia . Boeing quotes fell 11% ^[32] .

In addition, airlines began to abandon contracts already concluded with Boeing for the supply of this type of aircraft. The first to do this was the Indonesian airline Garuda , which began negotiations to cancel the order for the supply of 49 aircraft Boeing 737 MAX 8 ^[33] .

• The crash of a Boeing 737 near Jakarta

• Photo of a crashed plane three months before the crash
• Flight information on flightradar24.com
• Flight information on the Aviation Safety Network website