Fast facts on crashed Ethiopian Airlines plane

An image shared on Ethiopian Airlines official Twitter handle on March 10, 2019 shows the carrier's Group CEO at the site of the plane crash. PHOTO | COURTESY

What you need to know:

  • First word of the crash came from Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed when he expressed his "deepest condolences" on Twitter.

  • The plane lost contact six minutes after take-off.

  • Flight ET302 from Addis Ababa to Nairobi in Kenya had 149 passengers and 8 crew members on board.

Boeing on Sunday said it is 'deeply saddened' by deadly Ethiopian Airlines crash which occured at Bishoftu shortly after take off from Bole International Airport in Addis Ababa.

The Ethiopian Airlines Group CEO Tewolde Gebremariam said all 157 people on board the plane died. Here are some fast facts about the crashed plane:

  • The plane belonging to Ethiopian airlines took off at Bole International Airport in the Ethiopian capital at 8.38am local time.

  • The plane lost contact six minutes after take-off.

  • The Boeing 737-800MAX crashed around the town of Bishoftu, 60km southeast of the capital.

  • Flight ET302 from Addis Ababa to Nairobi in Kenya had 149 passengers and 8 crew members on board.

  • All passengers and crew on board the Ethiopian Airlines jet have died.

  • First word of the crash came from Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed when he expressed his "deepest condolences" on Twitter.

  • The Boeing 737 aircraft is relatively new to the skies, having been launched in 2016. It was added to the Ethiopian Airlines fleet in July last year.

  • Another plane of the same model was involved in a crash five months ago, when a Lion Air flight crashed into the sea near Indonesia with nearly 190 people on board.

  • The passengers were from 33 different nationalities.

  • Thirty-two Kenyans are among 157 people who died in the Sunday morning crash.

  • The pilot of the ill-fated plane Yared Mulugeta was an Ethiopian-born Kenyan national.