Photo: Mel Riffel/Facebook
A dad-to-be from California was one of the American victims of Sunday’s devastating Ethiopian Airlines crash.
Six minutes after takeoff, a Boeing 737 Max 8 plane which had departed from Bole International Airport in Addis Ababa crashed about 40 miles southeast of the Ethiopian capital.All 157 people on board, including eight Americans, were killed, airline officials said.
“The community, we’ve been through a lot of things this past year, this year,” the church’s pastor, Father Fred Gucor, told the news station. “Very supportive community, just this morning after the Mass, people are offering prayer, offering [the parents, Ike and Susan Riffel] help, anything, anything.”
A military captain from Illinois was another victim of the crash.
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According to the outlet, Garg’s last text message to her husband read, “I’ve boarded the flight and will call you once I land.” As Bhattacharya was typing his response, he said his phone buzzed and a caller told him about the plane crash.
Among the victims on the flight from at least 35 countries were22 United Nations staff members, including Garg. Many of them were traveling to the Kenyan home of the UN’s African headquarters for a UN Environment Assembly that began on Monday.
Several humanitarian aid workers were also killed in the crash.
Four of the nine Ethiopians killed in the crashworked for Catholic Relief Services, and were en route to Nairobi for training, according to a statement from the CRS.
The Nigerian government also confirmed the death offormer ambassador Abiodun Bashua, who had been working with the UN Economic Commission for Africa, according toTheNew York Times.
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In a press release on Monday, Ethiopian Airlines announced that both the plane’s Digital Flight Data Recorder (DFDR) and Cockpit Voice Recorder (CVR) had been recovered. These two devices willhelp investigators determine the cause of the crash.
Citing flight data, tracking website Flightradar24 tweeted that the planeexperienced unstable vertical speed.
A Boeing 737 Max 8 plane, the same model in Sunday’s crash,went downlast year after taking off from Jakarta. All 189 people aboard the Lion Air flight also were killed.
source: people.com
