Ethiopian Airlines flight 302, a 737 MAX 8 (registration ET-AVJ) operating from Addis Ababa to Nairobi, crashed shortly after takeoff on 10 March around 05:45 UTC.

Update — 4 April

The Ethiopian Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau has issued a Preliminary report today, detailing findings thus far. You may read the full report reproduced below.

Update — 18 March

On 18 March, the French Bureau d’Enquêtes et d’Analyses issued a statement on the progress of downloading and analyzing the data from the Flight data recorder. The full statement is reproduced below.

Update — 11 March

The US Federal Aviation Administration issued a Continued Airworthiness Notification to the International Community on 11 March ‘ regarding FAA continued operational safety activity related to the Boeing 737-8 and Boeing 737-9 (737 MAX) fleet.’ A CANIC is an update on FAA activities that operators will wish to be notified of, but not necessarily require action.

Flightradar24 Data

The flight departed Addis Ababa at 05:39 UTC (08:39 local time) and crashed just a few moments after takeoff to the east of the airport. The flight was operated by a Boeing 737 MAX 8 (ET-AVJ | MSN 62450) delivered to Ethiopian Airlines in November 2018.

Visualizing ET302 data

The following graph combines altitude data (feet AMSL), ground speed data (knots), and vertical speed (feet per minute) from ET302.

Important note: altitude data reported by ADS-B is the pressure altitude at standard pressure and not the altitude above ground level. This is why some values may be below the ground altitude at Addis Ababa airport. Standard pressure is 1013 hPa, pressure reported at HAAB | ADD at the time of accident was 1029 hPa. Airport elevation is 7625 feet MSL. All altitude data when the aircraft is ‘on ground’ is reported as 0. Airborne altitude values are report as stated above.

In the graph below we’ve removed altitude values of 0 for visual clarity.

For additional clarity, the third graph below shows only the ground speed.

Flightradar24 data for download

Below is data in basic CSV formatting (5 second reporting intervals), granular CSV (multiple reports per second), and KML (for use in 3D mapping software)

Cover image © Jono Druion