Kenyan Cabinet Secretary of Transport James Macharia and Ethiopian Airlines’ Kenya country manager, Yilma Goshu, held a press conference at the Jomo Kenyatta International airport in Nairobi.
The two officials said that the focus now would be on conducting the “investigation in line with international standards” and on “comforting and counselling relatives, friends and family” of passengers on board the flight. So far they managed to contact 25 families, they confirmed.
Goshu said that relatives of the victims who wished to travel to Addis would be assisted, and the government would provide accommodation and updates to the investigation.
He added that Ethiopian Airlines had grounded its Boeing 737 Max 8 fleet, “as a precautionary safety measure. He noted that the decision to “suspend the planes from service” did not mean that the incident was related to “defects with (this) specific fleet.”
