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Ethiopian Transport Minister Dagmawit Moges on Sunday evening revealed findings of the analysis of Ethiopian Airlines flight 302 black box.
Minister Moges disclosed that the events leading up to the March 10, 2019 crash had "clear similarities" to Lion Air flight 610 crash that happened in Indonesia in October 2018.
"During the investigation of the FDR [flight data recorder], clear similarities were noted between Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 and Indonesian Lion Air Flight 610, which will be the subject of further investigation," the Minister reported.
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The Minister did not immediately disclose the exact similarities between the two accidents, however, investigations into the Ethiopian crash revealed serious instrument failures that were also discovered to have caused the Indonesian crash.
Lion Air Flight 610 killed 189 after crashing into Java Sea
Just as the Ethiopian crash, the Indonesian flight killed all 189 passengers and crew aboard the flight within a few minutes after take-off. For flight 610, the plane went down after 12 minutes.
The pilot of the Indonesian flight is also reported to have attempted to return to the airport after reporting flight control problems, which is also similar to the Ethiopian flight.
The Lion Air plane had also been a Boeing 737 MAX 8. Its previous flight before the crash had experienced similar instrument failure and sensor malfunctions that the pilot had been able to control and successfully landed the plane.
Following the tragic crash, Boeing issued warnings and training advisories to operators of the specific plane model on a possible design flaw of the plane's Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS).
The advisory instructed the operators to be keen not to allow the MCAS to cause the plane to take a nose dive, an occurrence that is similar to both plane crashes.
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Reports on Sunday also indicated that families of the 157 victims who perished in the Ethiopian flight will be compensated by the Airline.