Nairobi, March 10, 2019: Four Indians were among 157 people killed when an Ethiopian Airlines flight to Nairobi crashed early on March 10.

“There are no survivors on board the flight, which carried passengers from 33 countries,” says state-run Ethiopian Broadcasting Corporation, quoting an unidentified source at the airline.

The Ethiopian prime minister’s office offered its “deepest condolences” to the families.

The pilot had alerted controllers “he had difficulties” and wanted to turn back the plane, the head of Ethiopian Airlines said. The pilot “was given clearance” to return to Addis, chief executive officer Tewolde GebreMariam told journalists in the Ethiopian capital when asked whether there had been a distress call.

The aircraft had 149 passengers and eight crew members aboard, a spokesman for the airline said.

He said they included 32 Kenyans, 18 Canadians, nine Ethiopians, eight Italians, eight Chinese citizens, eight Americans, seven British citizens, seven French citizens, six Egyptians, five Dutch citizens, four Indians, four people from Slovakia, three Austrians, three Swedes, three Russians, two Moroccans, two Spaniards, two Poles and two Israelis.

Belgium, Indonesia, Somalia, Norway, Serbia, Togo, Mozambique, Rwanda, Sudan, Uganda and Yemen each had one citizen onboard. Four of those on board were listed as using United Nations passports and their nationalities were not immediately clear.

“The group CEO who is at the accident scene right now regrets to confirm that there are no survivors,” the company says in a statement confirming the death toll.

Meanwhile, eight Chinese passengers were on the crashed flight, Chinese state TV reports. CCTV says on a social media site that “eight Chinese citizens were aboard” the Flight ET 302 which crashed near the town of Bishoftu shortly after taking off.

Its last major crash was in January 2010, when a flight from Beirut went down shortly after take-off. The Boeing 737-800MAX is the same type of plane as the Indonesian Lion Air jet that crashed last October, 13 minutes after takeoff from Jakarta, killing all 189 people on board.

Source: The Hindu