Ethiopian residents who lived near the crash site of Ethiopian Airlines flight 302 held a memorial service on Sunday in honour of the victims that died almost a year ago.
Escorted by men on horse backs, Bishoftu village elders walked to the crash site, prayed and poured traditional brew on the ground, in a ritual they said was their way to mark the end of a mourning period.
Ethiopian Airlines flight 302 crashed in that open field six minutes after take-off from Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital on March 10, 2019, killing all 157 people on board and sparked a chain of events that would negatively impact one of the world’s biggest airline companies.
Bishoftu residents said it felt akin to mourning their relatives, despite not knowing any of the crash victims.
A draft interim report from Ethiopian crash investigators circulated to US government agencies concludes that the crash was caused by the plane’s design, two people briefed on the matter said.
The last Ethiopian Airline crash was in 2010 when its flight crashed into the Mediterranean Sea, shortly after it took off from Beirut. All the 90 people on board died.
