The head of Ethiopian Airlines said “many questions on the B-737 MAX airplane remain without answers” and he pledged “full and transparent cooperation to discover what went wrong.”
“Until we have answers, putting one more life at risk is too much,” CEO Tewolde Gebremariam said Monday in a statement.
“Immediately after the crash and owing to the similarity with the Lion Air Accident, we grounded our fleet of Max 8s. Within days, the plane had been grounded around the world. I fully support this,” Gebremariam said.
A March 10 Ethiopian Airlines crash and Indonesia’s Lion Air crash in October were both Boeing 737 MAX 8 planes. Everyone on board the two flights was killed.
The Ethiopian Airlines flight data recorders revealed that there were “clear similarities” between the two doomed flights.
Gebremariam asserted that his crews were “well trained” on this aircraft.
“We are the the only airline in Africa, among the very few in the world, with the B-737 full flight Simulator,” he said. “Contrary to some media reports, our pilots who fly the new model were trained on all appropriate simulators.”
“In a nation that sometimes is saddled with negative stereotypes, accidents like this affect our sense of pride,” Gebremariam said. “Yet this tragedy won’t define us. We pledge to work with Boeing and our colleagues in all the airlines to make air travel even safer.”