The ill fated Ethiopian airplane en route to the Capital of Kenya Nairobi, is said to have lost contact six minutes after takeoff with tanks loaded with jet fuel.
The plane with 157 on board from 35 countries did not get to its destination but crashed just outside the capital Addis ababa in a barley farm.
According to witnesses questioned who saw the last moments of the plane in the sky before hitting the ground, Cows that were grazing in the fields ran in panic as the plane came down with smoke billowing out behind.
The Addis Ababa-Nairobi route is also popular with tourists and business people, who are drawn to East Africa’s popular safari parks and fast-growing economies.
“It was a loud rattling sound. Like straining and shaking metal,” said Turn Buzuna, a 26-year-old housewife and farmer who lives about 300 meters (328 yards) from the crash site.
“Everyone says they have never heard that kind of sound from a plane and they are under a flight path,” she added.
Since the plane had just taken off with tanks full with jet fuel when it hit the ground it expolded and Little of the aircraft could be seen in the freshly-churned soil.
Malka Galato, 47, a barley and wheat farmer whose field the plane crashed in, also described smoke and sparks from the back. “The plane was very close to the ground and it made a turn… Cows that were grazing in the fields ran in panic,” he said.
Tamirat Abera, 25, was walking past the field at the time. He said the plane turned sharply, trailing white smoke and items like clothes and papers, then crashed about 300 meters away.
“It tried to climb but it failed and went down nose first,” he said. “There was fire and white smoke which then turned black.”
It crashed near Bishoftu, southeast of the Ethiopian capital.It was not immediately clear what caused the crash of the plane, which had been delivered to the airline in November.
Ethiopian state media said more than 30 nationalities were on board flight ET 302.
They included 32 Kenyans, 18 Canadians, nine Ethiopians, eight each from China, the United States and Italy; seven each from France and Britain; six from Egypt; four each from India and Slovakia, among others.
The Boeing 737-8 MAX is the same type of plane as the Indonesian Lion Air jet that crashed last October, 13 minutes after the take-off from Jakarta, killing all 189 people on board.
The last major accident involving an Ethiopian Airlines passenger plane was a Boeing 737-800 that exploded after taking off from Lebanon in 2010, killing 83 passengers and seven crew members.