France’s civil aviation safety authority won’t be analyzing flight-recorder data from the Ethiopian Airlines flight that crashed earlier this month, killing all aboard the Boeing Co. 737 Max aircraft, according to a person familiar with the investigation.
No reason was given for the decision, which could be announced as soon as late Wednesday by Ethiopian authorities, said the person, who asked not be be named because the information isn’t public.
Ethiopian investigators back to Addis Ababa from Paris, Civil Aviation Authority Director-General Wossenyeleh Hunegnaw says by phone, without giving further information.
Ethiopian Airlines Group’s remaining orders for Boeing Co. 737 Max aircraft will depend on preliminary results of an investigation of a March 10 crash that killed 157 people, according to spokesman Asrat Begashaw.
The Ethiopian Air Boeing 737 Max crash had similarities to the Lion Air plane that went down off the coast of Indonesia about five months ago, the nation’s transport minister said, as scrutiny of one of the aircraft’s flight control systems continued to build.
A preliminary study of the flight data recorders show “clear similarities between Ethiopian Airlines flight 302 and Indonesian Lion Air Flight 610,” Dagmawit Moges said Sunday at a press conference in Addis Ababa. The findings will be subject to further investigation, and a preliminary report will be released within 30 days, she said.
BEA, the French agency for civil aviation safety, has begun technical work on the cockpit voice recorder from the Boeing 737 Max that crashed in Ethiopia, it said in a tweet on Saturday.
The work is being done in coordination with the Ethiopian investigation team. The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board, Federal Aviation Administration and Boeing Co. are also taking part. In Ethiopia today, Transport Minister Dagmawit Moges said that it would take between five and six months to identify the victims of the Ethiopian Airlines jet.
--With assistance from Nizar Manek.
Identifying the victims of the Boeing Co. 737 Max jet that crashed in Ethiopia a week ago will take between five and six months, Ethiopian Transport Minister Dagmawit Moges said in a press conference.
(Bloomberg) -- Ethiopian Transport Minister Dagmawit Moges plans to give a press conference this weekend about the crash of a Boeing Co. 737 Max on March 10 that killed 157 people, according to a spokesman.
Briefing will include Ethiopian federal police. Investigators at French civil aviation safety authority BEA have started examining two black boxes from downed Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302.
Air Canada suspended its financial guidance for the first quarter and full year, citing the grounding of Boeing Co.’s 737 Max and the planemaker’s suspension of deliveries.
The Montreal-based carrier said is continuing to develop a contingency plan to address the situation and will provide updates. Certain forecasts for the next two years remain in place.
More troublesome signs emerged for Boeing Co.’s 737 Max as the U.S. appeared likely to keep the jet on ground into April and satellite data suggested a link between the March 10 Ethiopian Airlines crash and an Indonesian disaster in October.
Meanwhile, the aircraft’s order book looked increasingly shaky as Garuda Indonesia said it would slash its purchase and French President Emmanuel Macron got set to hawk competing Airbus SE jets on a trip to China.
--With assistance from Angus Whitley, Abbas Al Lawati, Jihye Lee, Kyunghee Park, Lena Lee, Helene Fouquet, Benjamin Katz, Nizar Manek, Josh Wingrove, Joshua Gallu, Jennifer Epstein, Alan Levin, Shannon Pettypiece, Francois de Beaupuy, Anurag Kotoky, Harry Suhartono, Ryan Beene and Erik Wasson.
Ethiopian ruling party-controlled Fana Broadcasting Corp. reports, citing a Civil Aviation Authority spokesman.
Ethiopia has sent black boxes from a crashed Boeing Co. 737 jet to France for decoding after refusing to hand them to U.S. authorities that had kept the Max model flying after most other regulators grounded it.
The flight-data and cockpit-voice recorders have arrived at the Bureau d’Enquetes et d’Analyses, France’s air-accident investigator, with coordination meetings underway and technical work set to start Friday. The BEA said it will download data but hasn’t been asked to analyze it.
— With assistance from Alan Levin, Harry Suhartono, Nizar Manek and Tara Patel.
An Ethiopian Airlines spokesman comments on flight data recorders by text message.