A March 10, 2019, crash of an Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 737 Max 8 near Bishoftu, 60 kilometers southeast of Addis Ababa, killed all 157 people on board, including 149 passengers and eight crew members. The aircraft, which had entered service in July 2018, lost contact six minutes after takeoff and crashed shortly after.
The incident revived scrutiny of the 737 Max model, which had been photographed in November 2017 during a flight from Abidjan. The same aircraft type was involved in a October 2018 Lion Air crash in Indonesia that killed 190 people, with both accidents linked to faulty angle-of-attack sensors triggering automated systems to force nosedives.
Boeing issued an emergency directive in late 2018 warning that sensor malfunctions could lead to loss of control. The Ethiopian Airlines flight exhibited unstable vertical speed shortly after takeoff, according to reports. The company later stated it was providing technical support to investigators and expressing condolences to victims' families.
Ethiopian Airlines' previous major accidents include a 2010 crash into the Mediterranean that killed 90 people and a 2015 hijacking that resulted in 125 fatalities. The 737 Max, introduced in 2016, lacks a common override feature allowing pilots to recover from nose dives, a design flaw highlighted after the Lion Air incident.
