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Ethiopia to resume Boeing 737 Max flights 3 years after deadly crash

Published 12:19 pm Monday, December 27, 2021

By Samuel Gebre Bloomberg

FILE - In this May 8, 2019, file photo, a Boeing 737 MAX 8 jetliner being built for Turkish Airlines takes off on a test flight in Renton, Wash. A trade group representing hundreds of airlines pushed again for additional training on Boeing’s 737 Max plane and for a coordinated effort to ensure the safe return of the aircraft after two deadly crashes. The International Air Transport Association held a meeting in Montreal between airlines and regulators. Boeing’s 737 Max fleet has been grounded worldwide after crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia killed 346 people. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren, File)
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FILE - In this May 8, 2019, file photo, a Boeing 737 MAX 8 jetliner being built for Turkish Airlines takes off on a test flight in Renton, Wash. A trade group representing hundreds of airlines pushed again for additional training on Boeing’s 737 Max plane and for a coordinated effort to ensure the safe return of the aircraft after two deadly crashes. The International Air Transport Association held a meeting in Montreal between airlines and regulators. Boeing’s 737 Max fleet has been grounded worldwide after crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia killed 346 people. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren, File)
In this 2019 photo, a Boeing 737 Max 8 jetliner takes off on a test flight in Renton, Washington. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren, File)

By Samuel Gebre / Bloomberg

Ethiopian Airlines Group, Africa’s largest carrier, will resume flying Boeing’s 737 Max jets from Feb. 1, three years after a crash that killed 157 people, triggering a world-wide grounding of the aircraft.

The recertification by regulators in the U.S. and Europe provides confidence to put the plane back into service, Chief Executive Officer Tewolde GebreMariam said in a statement posted on the Ethiopian Airlines Facebook page. The carrier has four Max jets.

“We have taken enough time to monitor the design modification work,” Tewolde said. With “more than 20 months of rigorous recertification process, and we have ensured that our pilots, engineers, aircraft technicians, cabin crew are confident on the safety of the fleet.”

Many other airlines already have the model back in service. China was the latest to approve the resumption of the Max jets for commercial flights.

Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 crashed shortly after takeoff from Addis Ababa in March 2019, five months after a similar incident in Indonesia, triggering a grounding of the Max worldwide. Boeing reached a $2.5 billion agreement earlier this year to settle a criminal charge that it defrauded the U.S. government by concealing information about the jet. That included almost $1.8 billion to reimburse Max customers.

Tewolde in September said Ethiopian Airlines had reached a separate settlement with Boeing.

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