Ethiopian Pilots Did Everything Right, Still Couldn’t Save Plane

The pilots aboard Ethiopia Airlines Flight 302 followed proper procedure and did all they could to save the plane before its deadly crash, officials said Thursday.

“The crew performed all the procedures repeatedly provided by the manufacturer but was not able to control the aircraft,” Ethiopia minister of transport Dagmawit Moges said at a Thursday news conference, according to Fox News.

The Ethiopian Airlines 737 Max 8 plane crashed March 10 shortly after takeoff, killing all 157 people on board. A Lion Air Boeing airplane also crashed in October 2018, in a similar series of events in which automatic controls faultily forced the plane into a nose dive, causing the pilots to lose control.

“Despite their hard work and full compliance with the emergency procedures, it was very unfortunate that they could not recover the airplane from the persistence of nose diving,” Ethiopian Airlines said in a Thursday statement.

The plane was in good condition to fly officials said Thursday following an investigation into the crash. Reviews of cockpit voice recordings and flight data do not reveal whether the plane had structural issues, and officials have recommended that Boeing review its flight control system for its 737 Max 8 airplanes, Fox reported.

Witnesses described a cloud of white smoke and debris trailing the plane before it crashed.

Aviation authorities in Europe ordered the grounding of the 737 Max aircraft in early March following the crash. U.S. President Donald Trump followed suit and grounded all Boeing 737 Max planes.

Following the crash, numerous airlines announced that they won’t fly any of the 737 Max planes until authorities determine what went wrong and determine other planes won’t suffer the same fate, CNN reported.

The ongoing investigation into the crash is expected to conclude by the end of 2019.