Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302, a scheduled international passenger flight from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, to Nairobi, Kenya, tragically crashed on 10 March 2019, six minutes after takeoff.
Route of Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 from Addis Ababa to Nairobi.
The aircraft involved was a new Boeing 737 MAX 8, bearing serial number 62450 and registered as ET-AVJ. It had accumulated 1,330.3 airframe hours over 382 takeoff and landing cycles since its delivery to Ethiopian Airlines on 15 November 2018.
The crash occurred near the town of Bishoftu. All 157 people on board, including 149 passengers and 8 crew members, perished in the accident.
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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.
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Initial Moments of the Flight
Forty-four seconds after takeoff, as the main gear lifted off the runway, the angle of attack (AoA) sensor on the left side of the aircraft's nose sustained damage, possibly from a bird strike. This damage caused the sensor to send faulty readings, leading the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS) to falsely detect an imminent stall. In response, MCAS repeatedly commanded the horizontal stabilizer to push the aircraft's nose downward.
Approximately one minute into the flight, the first officer, following the captain's instructions, retracted the flaps. Within 10 seconds of this action, the autopilot disengaged, and the aircraft started to descend. By the second minute, the MCAS had angled the horizontal stabilizer sharply downward, pitching the aircraft into a dive.
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. At the plane's high speed, there was further pressure on the stabilizer.
Three minutes into the flight, with the aircraft continuing to lose altitude and accelerating beyond its safety limits, the captain instructed the first officer to request permission from air traffic control to return to the airport. Permission was granted, and the air traffic controllers diverted other approaching flights. Following instructions from air traffic control, they turned the aircraft to the east, and it rolled to the right.
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About five minutes into the flight, having struggled to keep the plane's nose from diving further by manually pulling the yoke, the captain turned the electrical trim tab system back on in the hope that it would allow him to put the stabilizer back into neutral trim. However, in turning the trim system back on, he also reactivated the MCAS software, which reactivated nine seconds later and pushed the nose further down.
Recovery Efforts
Shortly after the crash, police and a firefighting crew from a nearby Ethiopian Air Force base arrived and extinguished the fires caused by the crash. 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.
Recovery efforts at the crash site of Ethiopian Airlines flight ET302.
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.
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Victims
The airline stated that the flight's 149 passengers had 35 different nationalities. Many of the passengers were travelling to Nairobi to attend the fourth session of the United Nations Environment Assembly. A total of 22 people affiliated with the United Nations (UN) were killed, including seven 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.
Crash victim positive identification was announced on 13 September 2019.
Investigation
The Ethiopian Civil Aviation Authority (ECAA) investigated the accident. On 13 March 2019, the FAA announced that new evidence found on the crash site and satellite data on Flight 302 suggested that the aircraft might have suffered from the same problem which the aircraft operating Lion Air Flight 610 had suffered from. Investigators discovered the jackscrew that controlled the pitch angle of the horizontal stabilizer of Flight 302, was in the full "nose down" position.
On 9 March 2020, the ECAA released an interim report on the crash. This report stated that the left and right angle of attack (AOA) values deviated by 59°. The AOA disagree message did not appear. The left minimum operating speed and left stick shaker speed was computed to be greater than the maximum operating speed without any invalidity detection. The pitch Flight Director bars disappeared then reappeared with left and right displaying different guidance. The left stick shaker activated. The nose-down trim (MCAS) triggered four times. The right over-speed clacker activated. On the third MCAS trigger there was no corresponding motion of the stabilizer, which is consistent with the stabilizer trim cutout switches being in the "cutout" position at that moment. The MCAS design relied on single AOA sensor inputs making it vulnerable to undesired activation.
Overall, the US team concurs with the EAIB's investigation of the MCAS and related systems and the roles that they played in the accident. However, many operational and human performance issues present in this accident were not fully developed as part of the EAIB investigation. These issues include flight crew performance, crew resource management (CRM), task management, and human-machine interface.
The BEA also submitted comments to the draft final report, in which it disagrees with some aspects of the Ethiopian findings, specifically regarding crew performance. The BEA globally agrees with the analysis of the crew performance for phases 4 and 5 of the accident scenario.
Aftermath
Following the Ethiopian Airlines crash, China and most other civil aviation authorities grounded the airliner over safety concerns. 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 Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS).
Identification of Remains and Impact on Families
The Boeing 737-MAX slammed into the ground with such force that only fragments of those who died could be recovered. The identification of human remains from the crash of Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 is complete, the head of Ethiopia's police said late on Monday, six months after the plane nosedived into farmland outside the capital Addis Ababa.
Collecting and identifying the remains has been a fraught process. Experts from another UK-based company, Blake Emergency Services, and from Interpol and the Ethiopian police were involved in preparing DNA samples and fingerprints.
Many relatives are pressing for the farmland where the plane crashed, about 60km (37 miles) east of the capital, to be turned into a permanent memorial.
District Court in Chicago names Chicago-based Boeing, the manufacturer of the aircraft and Ethiopian Airlines as defendants.
Ambiguous Loss: A Nepalese Family's Decision
The probable potential return of a loved one vanishes in confirmed identification of the deceased. The experience is different in an unconfirmed death. “Ambiguous loss” was first coined by Pauline Boss, which results when families of missing persons have no clue of the whereabouts of their loved ones, whether they are either dead or alive, (or if they are dead), the location of the remains is unknown.
In the first type, people are psychologically present but physically absent. Though presumed to be dead, their remains are never recovered. Consequently, the family members are engrossed with the missing person’s thoughts even years after the event. In the second type, people are alive and physically present but psychologically absent due to depression, addiction, or dementia.
A Nepalese citizen was one of the victims whose family did not provide any AM data. The author conducted a telephone interview with a close family member on June 12, 2019. The Nepalese victim’s family declined to provide a DNA reference sample. However, they provided some relevant AM data, which was then communicated to the INTERPOL office of Nepal. They made a decision not to claim the human remains of their loved one, which was unconventional.
On asking, “under what circumstances was this decision taken”, they replied, “they are aware of the fact that her remains cannot be retrieved” and “funeral rituals according to the Hindu tradition shouldn’t wait”. Thus, they completed the funeral rituals with the charred soil collected from the crash site. It was their choice for a final goodbye.
The family decided to continue with the grief without the physical remains. It was a contentious decision. A few issues might disturb them in the coming days: would she be alive if she had taken a different route or had stayed longer? In situations like this, people can be frozen and immobilized by ambiguous loss, which prevents them from beginning the mourning process.
The recovery of the bodies or bones of their precious ones not only provides families with internal peace but can also be an important sign of reckoning; it can be a crucial element of the healing process for families and communities. Also, the funeral rituals performed by the family and friends together re-affirm that the person has died. The family may overcome the stage of denial and accept that the person has died.
On reaching Nepal, they completed the last rites according to the Hindu culture. Though there was no body, a dummy was made, and cremation was undertaken.
During incidents like this Ethiopian airline crash where there may be limited chances of the recovery of the remains, the families should be thoroughly informed on the possibilities and permitted to make the decisions that they feel are best, without others telling them what they should do. In unlikely situations, which do not allow a return of identified remains, all information should be passed on to the family members. This can allow them an opportunity to complete the last rites according to their culture in timely manner.
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