There were no survivors from an Ethiopian Airlines flight that crashed with 149 passengers and eight crew members aboard, the state broadcaster said on Sunday.
“There are no survivors onboard the flight, which carried passengers from 33 countries,” said state-run Ethiopian Broadcasting Corporation, quoting an unidentified source at the airline.
Flight ET302 crashed near the town of Bishoftu, 62 kilometres southeast of the capital Addis Ababa, the airline said, confirming the plane was a Boeing 737-800 MAX.
The flight left Bole airport in Addis Ababa at 8.38am (12.38pm Thailand time), before losing contact with the control tower just a few minutes later at 8.44am.
The prime minister’s office sent condolences via Twitter to the families of those lost in the crash, without offering further details.
State-owned Ethiopian is one of the biggest carriers on the continent by fleet size. It said previously that it expected to carry 10.6 million passengers last year.
Its last major crash was in January 2010, when a flight from Beirut went down shortly after take-off.
IFEOMA OKEKE
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