Ethiopia Can’t Read Black Boxes, ‘Might’ Send Them Abroad- Airline
Ethiopia does not have the equipment to analyse the black boxes from Sunday’s deadly Ethiopian Airlines plane crash, and is considering sending them abroad, a spokesman for the airline said Wednesday.
The airline’s chief executive Tewolde GebreMariam earlier told CNN the black boxes would have to be examined outside the country, in a destination to be chosen by investigators — possibly the United States or “a closer country in Europe in the interest of proximity and in the interest of speed.”
Numerous countries have banned Boeing’s 737 MAX 8 medium-haul workhorse jet from their airspace while airlines around the world have grounded the plane after the crash which killed 157 people.
The Nairobi-bound plane was the same type as the Indonesian Lion Air jet that crashed in October, killing 189 passengers and crew — and some experts have detected similarities between the two accidents.
Tewolde said Ethiopian Airlines pilots had been retrained on the MAX 8 following the Lion Air crash.
“There is very significant similarities on the two accidents. There are a lot of questions to be answered on the airplane,” he told CNN.
