List of nationalities on crashed Ethiopian Airlines plane

Ethiopian Airlines is currently giving more details of the passengers who were on board ET 302 that crashed on Sunday shortly after taking off from Bole International Airport in Addis Ababa.

The numbers we have so far are:

• 32 passengers were Kenyan
• 18 Canada
• 9 Ethiopian
• 8 Chinese
• 8 Italian
• 8 US
• 7 British
• 7 France
• 6 Egypt
• 5 Netherlands
• 4 UN passport
• 4 Indian
• 3 Russian
• 2 Moroccan
• 2 Israeli
• 1 Belgian
• 1 Ugandan
• 1 Yemeni
• 1 Sudanese
• 1 Togo
• 1 Mozambican
• 1 Norwegian

Following confirmation of the fatalities, Kenya's Transport Cabinet Secretary James Macharia said a team led by Principal Secretary Esther Koimett has been sent to Ethiopia.

Some of the nationalities of those who have died have not yet been confirmed. So far, authorities have confirmed nationalities of 130 people.

'CAPTAIN'S FEAR'

The CEO of Ethiopian Airlines Tewolde Gebremariam said the captain of the crashed plane had told controllers at Bole airport that he was having difficulty and wanted to return, and that he had been given clearance.

He also said that the plane had arrived on Sunday morning from South Africa.

“[The] plane had more than three hours of ground time after coming from South Africa, it arrived with no remark and was dispatched with no remark.”

Mr Tewolde said smoke was still smouldering at the crash site when he visited.

INVESTIGATION

A US-based independent agency that investigates aviation accidents, the National Transportation Safety Board, will send a team to help investigate the Ethiopian Airlines crash, a Reuters journalist reports.

The Boeing 737-800MAX crashed around the town of Bishoftu, 60km southeast of the capital. It was travelling to Nairobi, Kenya.

The Kenyan government has set up a support centre at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport. Relatives and friends of passengers in the crashed plane are receiving information at the centres set up at Terminal ID and Four Points By Sheraton Hotel that is within the airport.

Earlier, some of the relatives had broken down complaining that they had not been briefed by the government on the fate of their kin.

But the Transport Cabinets Secretary James Macharia said they were waiting for manifests from the Ethiopian airline. When the manifests were revealed, Mr Macharia said the government was dispatching a delegation to Ethiopia for coordination.

CRASHED PLANE

Boeing, the company that built the crashed aeroplane, said in a tweet that it was "closely monitoring the situation".

Its 737 Max-8 aircraft is relatively new to the skies, having been launched in 2016. It was added to the Ethiopian Airlines fleet in July last year.

Another plane of the same model was involved in a crash five months ago, when a Lion Air flight crashed into the sea near Indonesia with nearly 190 people on board.