At 8:38 a.m. on March 10 (local time), the ethiopian plane took off from Bole International Airport, Addis Ababa City to the capital Nairobi, Kenya. Just 6 minutes after takeoff, the plane was out of contact.
On the afternoon of March 10, ethiopian Airlines confirmed that no one was left alive in the ET 302 plane crash. At the time of the accident, there were 157 people on board, including 149 passengers and 8 crew members.
On the morning of March 11, ethiopian airline CEO Tewolde Gebre Mariam confirmed that the deceased passengers were from 33 different countries. These include: Kenya, Ethiopia, USA, Canada, France, China, Egypt, Sweden, UK, Netherlands, India, Slovakia, Austria, Sweden, Russia, Morocco, Spain, Poland and Israel...
The airline said that at least four UN members were killed. However, Antonio Vitorino, head of the International Migration Organization (IOM), later told Reuter that at least 19 members of United Nations-affiliated organizations had died.
Director of the World Food Program, Mr. David Beasley confirmed that this agency had 7 employees killed on the unfortunate flight.
In addition to IOM, the World Food Program, the United Nations Relief Agency, the World Bank, and the United Nations Environment Agency are other organizations that were identified as having staff who were victims of the accident.
"The UN Secretary-General is extremely saddened by the loss in the plane crash," Dujarric told CNN. He expressed his sincere condolences to the victim's family and United Nations staff; and expressed his condolences to the Government and people of Ethiopia".
Mr. Dujarric also said that the United Nations is working with Ethiopia officials to get detailed information about the deceased UN employee. However, identifying UN staff on the flight is also difficult because they do not always carry a UN passport.
Meanwhile, Canadian officials confirmed there were 18 Canads on the flight. The Russian Embassy has also identified three Russian citizens killed in the plane crash. The US Embassy in Addis Ababa also confirmed that there were Americans on a student flight of Etopian Airline.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also announced that two Israelis died in the plane crash.
