Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302
The Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 was a scheduled international passenger flight that took off on March 10, 2019, from Addis Ababa International in Ethiopia to Jomo Kenyatta International Airport in Nairobi, Kenya. The aircraft was a Boeing 737 MAX 8 that held 138 seats. The aircraft crashed 6 minutes after takeoff in a town called Bishoftu, killing all 157 people onboard.
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| A piece of scrap from the aircraft: via CNN |
One minute into the flight, the pilot reported a "flight control" problem but still decided to continue the flight. Three minutes into the flight, the aircraft accelerated beyond its safety limits and the pilot requested permission to return to Addis Ababa as the air traffic controllers had already been diverting other approaching flights. However, the aircraft disappeared from the radar screens and crashed six minutes after takeoff. It reached an altitude of 9000 feet. this was the second disaster that had occurred involving the 737 MAX 8 plane in less than six months, the first being the Lion Air Flight 610 accident in October 2018.
There were 149 passengers and 8 crew members on board. There were passengers of 35 different nationalities present in the flight. The captain of the flight was Yared Getachew, who had been flying with the airline for more than 10 years and had been a Boeing 737 captain since November 2017. The first officer (second pilot) was Ahmed Nur Mohammed Nur who was a recent graduate from the airline's academy.
The airline told CNN that the pilots of the aircraft were trained on a flight simulator to learn how to fly the Boeing 737 MAX 8. Tewolde GebreMariam, the Ethiopian Airlines CEO, said to CNN, "Pilots transitioning to the Boeing 737 Max 8 aircraft from older 737 models were required only to undertake a short computer-based training program prescribed by Boeing and approved by the FAA." according to reports, pilots from Southwest Airlines and American Airlines only took courses that lasted between 56 minutes to 3 hours.
In my opinion, this is just sickening to listen to. This shows that many pilots are still not ready to operate the aircraft because they only took a 3-hour course. Proper education was supposed to be given to the pilots before they were assigned a new aircraft model. Due to the lack of training from the Airline Academy, many lives were lost. The airline should be held responsible for this. There is nothing we can do except pray for the souls of those who died and comfort the families. Let us gather ourselves to comfort the afflicted and pray for the benefit of those souls.
https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/23/business/ethiopian-airlines-max-8-boeing-simulator-intl/index.html
It's terrible to hear that preventable accidents like this still happens. I also agree that it's sickening to know that the pilots only took a 3 hour course on how to control a plane, which carries hundreds of people who put their lives in the hands of the pilots. I also agree that the company which only mandated a 3 hour course to learn how to fly the plane should be held responsible for their neglect.
ReplyDeleteJake, I agree with you that the airline should be held responsible for the situation. There were many lives lost that can't be brought back. I hope they learn from this incident and try to train pilots for longer than 1-3 hours. However, after looking into the situation a bit more, I believe that the pilots were not at fault. Even though they were taught their course in 3 hours, they supposedly followed the procedures given by the airplane manufacturers but it was no use. They must continue looking at the aircraft, since this is the second crash it may be the airplane itself.
ReplyDelete-Janssen
DeleteThis is a terribly tragic event to hear about. Especially knowing it could have easily been avoided. 157 lives lost for one moment of irresponsibility. I do not think it was the fault of the pilot since they were not given the proper training and did not know better. But I agree that the airline should be held accountable for this tragedy. I hope they will learn from this experience and give their pilots the necessary training to ensure a safe flight. Ethiopian Airlines must look into the aircraft being used, as well as the manufacturers because these small technical mistakes are not worth the loss of many lives. It is sickening that all these people, countless lives, countless families, countless friends, were lost. If the first time was not enough for the the manufacturers of the plane, hopefully the second time will be enough for a proper investigation and search for the guarantee of safety for these airplanes. My prayers go to those in and affected by this crash.
ReplyDeleteSeeing this event on the news, I was heartbroken, and I felt horrible for the people whose lives were affected. I remember watching this on CP24, and being at shock because of the amount of casualties. Anyway, I thought it was just an accident and that there was just a very unfortunate malfunction. Turns out, I didn’t know the whole story. I was not aware of the fact that they took courses that took less than a day, let alone 3 hours. I don’t recall the airline company being under heavy criticism - which they should be. Looking back at the story, there should be more than penalties and consequences.
ReplyDeleteThe results of this tragic event really made me angry. The pilots should've stopped what they were doing the second after problems started to arise. I also started to question how people are allowed to fly planes with only minimal course knowledge. People should be more aware of these kind of things and the pilot program should change their learning system. Every pilot should go above and beyond when learning the mechanics of any aircraft, to avoid events like this. I hope this story encourages pilots and to open their eyes and not fool around when it comes to flying. 157 lives is not worth losing because a pilot couldn't take more time to learn something. I pray for the families of all those people and I hope the system gets changed immediately.
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