Several thousand mourners gathered in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa for a ceremony to remember the victims who died in the plane crash a week ago.
At the same time, information speaks of "clear similarities" between the crashes in Ethiopia and the previous one in Indonesia involving the same type of plane.
Clear similarities have been noted between Ethiopian Air Flight 302 and Indonesian Lion Air Flight 610, which will be subject to further scrutiny during the investigation, says Transport Minister Dagmawit Moges after Ethiopian authorities were given access to what the French accident agency BEA managed to retrieve from the plane's black boxes, according to the American Wall Street Journal.
She also says that both American and Ethiopian authorities confirm the data that has been reported.
According to the newspaper, investigators have managed to extract all relevant and necessary information from the black boxes. A preliminary accident investigation will be presented within 30 days.
All 157 people on board died when a nearly new Boeing 737 Max 8 crashed in Ethiopia on March 10. Investigators are looking into possible links to the crash of the same Boeing model that crashed in Indonesia in October, killing 189 people.
One theory is that an emergency system, abbreviated MCAS, which regulates the plane's speed and altitude, is not working properly. The aircraft type has now been grounded in a number of countries after many flights.
According to The Seattle Times, citing sources who work or have worked for the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), Boeing's safety assessments have found that the MCAS system had several serious flaws. Among other things, the system's power was underestimated. The newspaper asked the company and the agency about the data a few days before the crash in Ethiopia, but the answers have not been detailed.
In a statement on Sunday, Boeing refers to the FAA having approved the MCAS system and concluded that the aircraft model met all safety regulations and requirements.
Four Swedes were among the dead in Ethiopia. One was a woman who worked for the Swedish development agency Sida. According to Expressen, she was 50 years old and the other Swedes were a 30-year-old woman, a 55-year-old man and a 45-year-old man who had been living in Kenya since 2008.
A mass funeral took place on Sunday at the Holy Trinity Cathedral in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa. Orthodox priests waved incense over coffins draped in the Ethiopian flag, with framed photos of the dead placed on top.
"I can't forget that she left an eight-month-old child and never came back," said Meselech Petros, whose sister Amma Tesfamariam worked as a flight attendant on the plane that crashed last Sunday.
The coffins were empty because it will be a while before relatives can get their remains, which in many cases are charred fragments. It will take up to six months to use DNA tests to identify the remains of those who died in the crash. In the meantime, relatives have been offered soil from the crash site for burial.
"It makes us so sad that we couldn't find any of her remains," said Teshome Legesse, whose niece Ayantu Girma also worked as a flight attendant on the plane.
Source: TT
