Ethiopian Airlines CEO promises to find out why flight 302 crashed

By Jason Neely

ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) - Ethiopian Airlines will work with investigators in Ethiopia, the United States and elsewhere “to figure out what went wrong with flight 302”, the airline's CEO Tewolde Gebremariam said on Monday.

His pledge follows reports the investigation was under strain because information about the March 10 crash, which killed 157 people, was not being shared with international partners.

Planemaker Boeing has come under intense scrutiny since the crash was the second in five months involving its new 737 MAX 8 model.

But Tewolde said the airline's relationship with Boeing was sound.

“Despite the tragedy, Boeing and Ethiopian Airlines will continue to be linked well into the future,” he said. “We pledge to work with Boeing and our colleagues in all the airlines to make air travel even safer.”

Boeing's 737 MAX fleet has been grounded worldwide since the crash, wiping $28 billion off the company's market value and throwing doubt over advance orders of the plane, worth more than $500 billion.

“I fully support this. Until we have answers, putting one more life at risk is too much,” Tewolde said of the grounding.