Business
Gone in 6 minutes: an Ethiopian Airlines jet’s final journey
From nearly the moment they roared down the runway and took off in their new Boeing jetliner, pilots of an Ethiopian Airlines flight encountered problems with the plane.
Almost immediately, a device called a stick shaker began vibrating the captain’s control column, warning him that the plane might be about to stall and fall from the sky.
For six minutes, the pilots were bombarded by alarms as they fought to fly the plane, at times pulling back in unison on their control columns in a desperate attempt to keep the huge jet aloft.
Ethiopian authorities issued a preliminary report Thursday on the March 10 crash that killed 157 people. They found that a malfunctioning sensor sent faulty data to the Boeing 737 Max 8′s anti-stall system and triggered a chain of events that ended in a crash so violent it reduced the plane to shards and pieces. The pilots’ struggle, and the tragic ending, mirrored an Oct. 29 crash of a Lion Air Max 8 off the coast of Indonesia, which killed 189 people.
The anti-stall system, called MCAS, automatically lowers the plane’s nose under some circumstances to prevent an aerodynamic stall. Boeing acknowledged that a sensor in the Ethiopian Airlines jet malfunctioned, triggering MCAS when it was not needed. The company repeated that it is working on a software upgrade to fix the problem in its best-selling plane.
“It’s our responsibility to eliminate this risk,” CEO Dennis Muilenburg said in a video. “We own it, and we know how to do it.”
Jim Hall, a former chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board, said the preliminary findings add urgency to re-examine the way that the Federal Aviation Administration uses employees of aircraft manufacturers to conduct safety-related tasks, including tests and inspections — a decades-old policy that raises questions about the agency’s independence and is now under review by the U.S. Justice Department, the Transportation Department’s inspector general and congressional committees.
Wreckage is piled at the crash scene of an Ethiopian Airlines flight crash near Bishoftu, Ethiopia, on March 11, 2019. (AP Photo/Mulugeta Ayene, File)
The 33-page preliminary report, which is subject to change in the coming months, is based on information from the plane’s flight data and cockpit voice recorders, the so-called black boxes. It includes a minute-by-minute narrative of a gripping and confusing scene in the cockpit.
Just one minute into Flight 302 from Addis Ababa to Nairobi in neighboring Kenya, the captain, Yared Getachew, reported that they were having flight-control problems.
Then the anti-stall system kicked in and pushed the nose of the plane down for nine seconds. Instead of climbing, the plane descended slightly. Audible warnings — “Don’t Sink” — sounded in the cockpit. The pilots fought to turn the nose of the plane up, and briefly they were able to resume climbing.
But the automatic anti-stall system pushed the nose down again, triggering more squawks of “Don’t Sink” from the plane’s ground-proximity warning system.
Following a procedure that Boeing reiterated after the Lion Air crash, the Ethiopian pilots flipped two switches and disconnected the anti-stall system, then tried to regain control. They asked to return to the Addis Ababa airport, but were continuing to struggle getting the plane to gain altitude.
Then they broke with Boeing procedure and returned power to controls including the anti-stall system, perhaps hoping to use power to adjust a tail surface that controls the pitch up or down of a plane, or maybe out of sheer desperation.
One final time, the automated system kicked in, pushing the plane into a nose dive, according to the report.
A half-minute later, the cockpit voice recording ended, the plane crashed, and all 157 people on board were killed. The plane’s impact left a crater 10 meters deep.
The Max is Boeing’s newest version of its workhorse single-aisle jetliner, the 737, which dates to the 1960s. Fewer than 400 Max jets have been sent to airlines around the world, but Boeing has taken orders for 4,600 more.
Boeing delivered this particular plane, tail number ET-AVJ, to Ethiopian Airlines in November. By the day of Flight 302, it had made nearly 400 flights and been in the air for 1,330 hours — still very new by airline standards.
The pilots were young, too, and between them they had a scant 159 hours of flying time on the Max.
The captain, Getachew, was just 29 but had accumulated more than 8,000 hours of flying since completing work at the airline’s training academy in 2010. He had flown more than 1,400 hours on Boeing 737s but just 103 hours on the Max. That may not be surprising, given that Ethiopian Airlines had just five of the planes, including ET-AVJ.
The co-pilot, Ahmed Nur Mohammod Nur, was only 25 and was granted a license to fly the 737 and the Max on Dec. 12 of last year. He had logged just 361 flight hours — not enough to be hired as a pilot at a U.S. airline. Of those hours, 207 were on 737s, including 56 hours on Max jets.
A grieving relative who lost his wife in the crash is helped by a member of security forces and others at the scene where the Ethiopian Airlines Boeing jetliner crashed shortly after takeoff on March 13, 2019. (AP Photo/Mulugeta)
While Boeing continues to work on its software update, Max jets remain grounded worldwide. The CEO said the company is taking “a comprehensive, disciplined approach” to fixing the flight-control software.
But some critics, including Hall, the former NTSB chairman, question why the work has taken so long.
“Don’t you think if Boeing knew what the fix was, we would have the fix by now?” he said. “They said after the Lion Air accident there was going to be a fix, yet there was a second accident with no fix. Now, in response to the worldwide reaction, the plane is grounded and there is still not a fix.”
Florida National News and FNN News en Español will provide on-site coverage of the Hispanic Heritage Month celebration at Cranes Roost Park.
ALTAMONTE SPRINGS, Fla. (FNN) — Hola at the Park will bring Hispanic culture, local businesses and live entertainment to Cranes Roost Park on Saturday, Oct. 3, from 2 to 6 p.m.
Hosted by the Hispanic Chamber of Metro Orlando and presented by AdventHealth, the event celebrates National Hispanic Heritage Month through food, entertainment, entrepreneurship and community connections.
According to the chamber’s event announcement, admission is free, the celebration is open to the community and no registration is required.
FNN to Spotlight Businesses and Community Voices
Florida National News and FNN News en Español, official media sponsors, will be on location covering the festivities.
The FNN team will spotlight chamber representatives, sponsors, participating businesses and community leaders, while sharing attendees’ perspectives throughout the afternoon.
Coverage will highlight the people, businesses and cultural traditions contributing to the celebration.
Photo: Florida National News
Food, Entertainment and Family Activities
The chamber’s announcement lists authentic cuisine, live entertainment, local businesses, wellness experiences, community resources, networking and family-friendly activities among the event’s offerings.
Attendees will have opportunities to explore Hispanic traditions, connect with entrepreneurs and learn about organizations serving Central Florida.
Photo: Florida National News
A Waterfront Setting in Uptown Altamonte
Cranes Roost Park, located in Uptown Altamonte, features a waterfront setting with scenic walkways around Cranes Roost Lake and the Eddie Rose Amphitheater and floating stage.
The park will serve as the gathering place for an afternoon celebrating Hispanic heritage and the connections between culture, business and community.
Event Details
- Date: Saturday, Oct. 3, 2026
- Time: 2–6 p.m. EDT
- Location: Cranes Roost Park, Altamonte Springs
- Host: Hispanic Chamber of Metro Orlando
- Presenting sponsor: AdventHealth
- Admission: Free and open to the community
- Registration: Not required
Photo: Florida National News
Vendor Inquiries
For information about vendor opportunities, contact the Hispanic Chamber of Metro Orlando at info@hispanicchamber.com or events@hispanicchamber.com.
The refrigerated lineup includes five single-serve dishes and two family-size meals.
BATAVIA, Ill. (FNN) — ALDI will begin rolling out seven ready-made meals in select stores in early October, with single-serve dishes priced under $8 and family-size options under $15. The grocer expects the full lineup to be available nationwide by January 2027.
The collection includes five single-serve meals: beef Bolognese spaghetti, beef brisket with white mac and cheese, butter chicken and rice, a chicken burrito bowl, and chicken fettuccine Alfredo. The two family-size dishes are chicken and bacon mac and cheese and a meat lovers pizza bake.
“Our shoppers are looking for meals that fit into busy lives,” said Joan Kavanaugh, vice president of national buying for ALDI U.S. She said the company developed the lineup with shoppers’ budgets and demand for convenient meals in mind.
Price and preparation
ALDI said the single-serve meals contain 30 to 46 grams of protein each. The family-size dishes contain 16 to 22 grams per serving. The company announced price limits for the two sizes but did not list a price for each individual meal.
“We tested hundreds of recipes as we developed this collection,” said Terry Jackson, head of food at Kitchen Food Company, ALDI’s supplier for the meals. Jackson said the team focused on flavor and ingredients while developing the dishes.
The meals are refrigerated, not frozen. ALDI says the single-serve dishes can be heated in a microwave, while the family-size meals are prepared in an oven. Shoppers should follow the directions on each package.
2026 Hispanic Chamber Hola at the Park. Uptown Altamonte Springs, Florida at beautiful Cranes Roost Park Saturday, October 3, 2026 (2:00 PM – 6:00 PM) (EDT)
When and where to find them
The meals will be stocked in the refrigerated meals section near the front of ALDI stores. Availability will vary during the rollout, which begins in select markets in early October and expands through the fall. ALDI also plans to offer additional meals through its limited-time ALDI Finds assortment each month over the following year. corporate.aldi.us
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