Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302

The aircraft was a brand-new Boeing 737 MAX 8, with serial number 62450 and registered as ET-AVJ. It was manufactured by Boeing Commercial Airplanes in 2018 and was delivered to Ethiopian Airlines on 15 November. It had logged 1,330.3 airframe hours in 382 takeoff and landing cycles. It was also powered by two CFM International LEAP-1B28B1G05 engines. In command was 29-year-old Captain Yared Getachew who had been flying with the airline for almost nine years and had logged a total of 8,122 flight hours, including 4,120 hours on the Boeing 737. He had been a Boeing 737-800 captain since November 2017; he started flying the Boeing 737 MAX since July 2018. His co-pilot was 25-year-old First Officer Ahmednur Mohammed who was a recent graduate from the airline's academy with 361 flight hours logged, including 207 hours on the Boeing 737. == Accident ==

Flight 302 was a scheduled international passenger flight from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, to Nairobi, Kenya. The flight departed Addis Ababa at 08:38:34 local time (05:38:34 UTC) with 149 passengers and 8 crew on board. By the second minute, the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS) had angled the horizontal stabilizer sharply downward, pitching the aircraft into a dive. Although the pilots managed to briefly counteract the nose-down attitude, the aircraft continued to lose altitude. The first officer, correctly identifying that they were experiencing a runaway MCAS activation, called out "Stab trim cut-out!" The pilots toggled switches to disable the aircraft's electrical trim tab system, which also deactivated the MCAS software. Unlike previous 737 models, both switches disabled all electrical control of the stabilizer. Without the electric trim system, the other possible way to move the stabilizer is by cranking the trim wheel by hand, but because the stabilizer was located opposite to the elevator, strong aerodynamic forces were acting on it due to the pilots' inadequate thrust management. Flight tracking data showed that the aircraft's altitude and rate of climb and descent were fluctuating. Several witnesses stated the plane trailed "white smoke" and made strange noises before crashing. The aircraft impacted the ground at nearly . There were no survivors. It crashed in the district of Gimbichu, Oromia Region, in a farm field near the town of Bishoftu, southeast of Bole International Airport. The impact created a crater about wide and long, and wreckage was driven up to deep into the soil. == Emergency response ==

Shortly after the crash, police and a firefighting crew from a nearby Ethiopian Air Force base arrived and extinguished the flames at the crash site. Police cordoned off the site, and Ethiopian Red Cross personnel and air crash investigators moved in. Together with local villagers, they sifted through the wreckage, recovering pieces of the aircraft, personal effects, and human remains. Trucks and excavators were brought in to assist in clearing the crash site. Human remains found were bagged and taken to Bole International Airport for storage in refrigeration units typically used to store roses destined for export, before being taken to St. Paul's Hospital in Addis Ababa for storage pending identification. Personnel from Interpol and Blake Emergency Services, a private British disaster response firm contracted by the Ethiopian government, arrived to gather human tissue for DNA testing, and an Israel Police forensics team also arrived to assist in identifying the remains of the two Israeli victims of the crash. The Chinese railway construction firm CRSG, later joined by another construction firm, CCCC, brought in large scale equipment including excavators and trucks. They recovered both flight recorders on 11 March, with the first being found at 9 am and the second flight recorder found at 1 pm. The black boxes were given to Ethiopian Airlines and were sent to Paris for inspection by the BEA, the French aviation accident investigation agency. == Passengers ==

The airline stated that there were 35 different nationalities among the 157 occupants on board. Many of the passengers were travelling to Nairobi to attend the fourth session of the United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEP). A total of 22 people affiliated with the United Nations (UN) were killed, including 7 World Food Programme staff, along with staff of the United Nations office in Nairobi, the International Telecommunication Union, and the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. The Deputy Director of Communications for the Kenya National Commission for UNESCO, two staff of General Electric, a retired Nigerian diplomat and senior UN official who was working on behalf of UNITAR, and a staff member of the Sudan office of the International Organization for Migration were also among the dead. The airline stated that one passenger had a United Nations laissez-passer. The flight was nicknamed a "UN shuttle" as it connected the African Union headquarters as well as other UN offices in Addis Ababa to the United Nations Office at Nairobi, the organisation's headquarters in Africa. The Addis Ababa-Nairobi route is also popular with tourists and business people. An employee of the Norwegian Red Cross, a British intern with the Norwegian Refugee Council, an environmental agent for the Association of Arctic Expedition Cruise Operators, four Catholic Relief Services staff were also killed. Notable victims on-board included the Italian archaeologist and Councillor for Cultural Heritage of Sicily, Sebastiano Tusa, and Nigerian-Canadian academic Pius Adesanmi. Slovak politician Anton Hrnko lost his wife and two children in the crash. == Responses ==

Ethiopian prime minister Abiy Ahmed offered his condolences to the families of the victims. Boeing issued a statement of condolence. The Ethiopian parliament declared 11 March as a day of national mourning. During the opening of the fourth United Nations Environment Assembly in Nairobi, a minute of silence was observed in sympathy for the victims. President Muhammadu Buhari of Nigeria, in his condolence message on behalf of the government and the people of Nigeria, extended his sincere condolences to Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed of Ethiopia, the people of Ethiopia, Kenya, Canada, China and all other nations who lost citizens in the crash. On 11 March, the FAA commented that the Boeing 737 MAX 8 model was airworthy. However, due to concerns on the operation of the aircraft, the FAA ordered Boeing to implement design changes, effective by April. It stated that Boeing "plans to update training requirements and flight crew manuals in response to the design change" to the aircraft's MCAS. The changes would also include enhancements to the activation of the MCAS and the angle of attack signal. Boeing stated that the upgrade was developed in response to the Lion Air crash but did not link it to this accident. On 19 March, the U.S. secretary of transportation, Elaine L. Chao, sent a memo to the U.S. Inspector General asking him to "proceed with an audit to compile an objective and detailed factual history of the activities that resulted in the certification of the Boeing 737 MAX 8 aircraft." Flight International commented that the accident would likely increase unease about the Boeing 737 MAX felt in the aftermath of the Lion Air Flight 610 accident on 29 October 2018, which similarly occurred shortly after take-off and killed all 189 occupants on board. Boeing shares dropped 11% over the weekend; by 23 March, Boeing had lost more than $40 billion in market value, dropping some 14% since the crash. Groundings == Investigation ==

The Ethiopian Civil Aviation Authority (ECAA), the agency responsible for investigating civil aviation accidents in Ethiopia, investigated the accident. The aircraft manufacturer, Boeing, stated that it was prepared to work with the United States National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) and assist Ethiopian Airlines. Both the cockpit voice recorder (CVR) and the flight data recorder (FDR) were recovered from the crash site on 11 March. The French Bureau of Enquiry and Analysis for Civil Aviation Safety (BEA) announced that it would analyze the flight recorders from the flight. BEA received the flight recorders on 14 March. On 17 March, Ethiopia's transport minister Dagmawit Moges announced that "the black box has been found in a good condition that enabled us to extract almost all the data inside" and that the preliminary data retrieved from the FDR showed a clear similarity with those of Lion Air Flight 610. On 13 March 2019, the FAA announced that new evidence found from the crash site and satellite data on Flight 302 suggested that the aircraft might have experienced the same problem Lion Air Flight 610 had faced. Investigators discovered the jackscrew that controlled the pitch angle of the horizontal stabilizer of Flight 302, was in the full "nose down" position. The finding suggested that, at the time of the crash, Flight 302 was configured to dive, similar to Lion Air Flight 610. Due to this finding, some experts in Indonesia suggested that the Indonesian National Transportation Safety Committee (NTSC) should cooperate with Flight 302's investigation team. Later, the NTSC offered assistance to Flight 302's investigation team, stating that the committee and the Indonesian Transportation Ministry would send investigators and representatives from the government to assist with the investigation of the crash. Preliminary report On 4 April 2019, the ECAA released the preliminary report. The preliminary report does not specifically mention the MCAS, but rather states "approximately five seconds after the end of the ANU (aircraft nose up) stabilizer motion, a third instance of AND (aircraft nose down) automatic trim command occurred without any corresponding motion of the stabilizer, which is consistent with the stabilizer trim cutout switches being in the "cutout" position". In the next 30 seconds the stabilizer trim moved 4.2 degrees nose down, from 4.6 to 0.4 units. In the next 10 seconds, the trim moved back up to 2.3 units as a result of pilot input. The pilots agreed on executing the stabilizer trim cut-out procedure, cutting power to the trim motor operated by the MCAS. Final report On 23 December 2022, the ECAA released the final report in the crash, which stated: On 27 December 2022, the NTSB released its comments on the accident separately from the final report, saying that the Ethiopian authorities failed to include them in or append them to their report. The NTSB's comments read in part: The NTSB further detailed: The report continues in documenting the pilots' errors: == Reactions to the investigation ==

Statements from parties Ethiopian Airlines said the MCAS was "to the best of our knowledge" activated when the aircraft crashed. According to Ethiopian transport minister Dagmawit Moges, the crew "performed all the procedures repeatedly provided by the manufacturer but was not able to control the aircraft". Bjorn Fehrm from Leeham News stated the preliminary report confirms "the Flight Crew followed the procedures prescribed by FAA and Boeing in AD 2018-23-51", A data spike in the flight data On 25 April 2019, The Aviation Herald submitted 25 questions that have arisen in the aftermath of the accident to the FAA's Flight Standardization Board (FSB) regarding their draft for certification of the Boeing 737 MAX aircraft. Earlier, it stated that a copy of the version of section 2.6 of the Flight Operations Manual, "Operational Irregularities", in use by Ethiopian Airlines at the time of the crash was dated 1 November 2017 and did not include material from the Operator's Bulletin issued by Boeing on 6 November 2018. Pilots have demonstrated in simulators that the trim wheels cannot be moved in severe mis-trim conditions combined with a high airspeed. As the pilots on Flight 302 pulled on the yoke to raise the nose, the aerodynamic forces on the tail's elevator would create an opposing force on the stabilizer trim jackscrew that would prevent the pilots from moving the trim wheel by hand. The Air Current reported that the resolution for this jammed trim issue was not part of Boeing's then-current 737 manual. According to Bjorn Fehrm (Leeham News) and Peter Lemme, the airplane was flying "at 375kts and MCAS was never designed to trim at these Speed/Altitude combinations". While defending the pilots' actions, Sullenberger was also highly critical of allowing someone with only 200 hours of flight experience to be first officer. == In popular culture ==

• The crash of Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 was mentioned in the 2021 episode "Grounded: Boeing Max 8", of the Canadian-made, internationally distributed documentary series Mayday, and was fully covered in the 2024 episode "Deadly Directive". • In February 2022, Netflix released Downfall: The Case Against Boeing, a documentary about the Lion Air Flight 610 and Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 plane crashes. • In September 2022, Amazon Prime released Flight/Risk, a feature documentary about the two Boeing 737 MAX crashes. == See also ==