by Dawit Endeshaw
ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) – Ethiopian Airlines will resume flying the Boeing 737 MAX plane on Tuesday despite criticism over the aircraft’s use since a fatal plane crash nearly three years ago that prompted authorities to around the world nailing the model to the ground.
In March 2019, a flight bound for Nairobi crashed into a field six minutes after taking off from the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa, killing all 157 passengers and crew. Five months earlier, another plane of the same model had crashed in Indonesia, killing 189 people.
These crashes revealed faulty software in the 737 Max aircraft, which led to the aircraft being grounded worldwide and causing the most serious crisis in Boeing’s history. The American aircraft manufacturer has spent some 20 billion dollars (17.75 billion euros) to remedy the difficulties of the 737 MAX after the highlighting of shortcomings in the certification process.
Ethiopian Airlines will conduct a demonstration flight of the Boeing 737 MAX around Mount Kilimanjaro, Africa’s highest peak, and return to Addis Ababa with journalists, diplomats and officials on board, the airline said.
Some relatives of the victims of the March 2019 accident, however, expressed their anger after the company’s decision.
“I will never fly in a MAX and if the flight I am taking turns out to be using a MAX I will have to cancel that flight,” said Tom Kabau, a Kenyan lawyer who lost his 29-year-old brother George in the crash.
In a statement issued Jan. 22, Ethiopian Airlines said the decision was made “after intense recertification” of the Boeing 737 MAX by multiple regulators.
“We have taken enough time to monitor the design change work with a rigorous rectification process over more than 20 months,” Ethiopian Airlines CEO Tewolde Gebremariam said in a statement released in December.
“Our pilots, engineers, aircraft technicians and cabin crew are confident in the safety of the fleet,” he said at the time.
Ethiopia is one of the latest countries to return the 737 MAX to service, which is already flying in the United States, Europe, China, Australia, Japan and Indonesia.
(With contributions from Edwin Waita and Ben Makori in Nairobi, French version Dina Kartit, edited by Blandine Hénault)