The flight crew on the Ethiopian Airlines jet that crashed last month, killing all 157 people on board, repeatedly followed procedures but could not prevent the disaster, according to a preliminary report.
The plane nosedived several times before it crashed but despite their efforts, pilots “were not able to control the aircraft”, transport minister Dagmawit Moges said.
She made the announcement at a press conference citing data from the doomed plane’s recorders.
The Boeing 737 MAX 8 jet crashed on March 10 shortly after take-off from Addis Ababa.
It was the second crash of a 737 MAX within five months, following a Lion Air crash in Indonesia.
Following the Ethiopian disaster, MAX jets have been grounded worldwide pending a software fix that Boeing is rolling out, which is yet to receive approval from the US Federal Aviation Administration and other regulators.