The Ethiopian Airlines pilot whose jet crashed killing 157 people had reported internal control problems, the firm said on Wednesday, as it prepared to send the black boxes to Europe from a disaster that has rocked the global aviation industry.
The still unexplained crash, which happened just after take-off from Addis Ababa, followed another involving a Boeing 737 MAX in Indonesia five months ago that killed 189 people.
Though there is no proof of any link, the twin calamities have spooked passengers, led to the grounding of most of Boeing’s 737 MAX fleet and hammered shares in the world’s biggest planemaker.
At the rural site where Flight ET 302 came down trailing smoke and sparks near the village of Gora-Bokka, dozens of grief-stricken relatives paid their respects.
Laying bunches of white roses at makeshift shrines on the still-churned soil, they sought to comfort each other, hugging and sinking to their knees.Only charred fragments of victims remain, meaning it will take weeks to identify all of them using dental or DNA testing.The passengers came from more than 30 nations