Ethiopian Airlines has denied tampering with maintenance records in the wake of the fatal March crash of one of its Boeing 737 Max jet aeroplanes which killed all 157 passengers on board.
“The accident, in which the plane nose-dived into a field outside Addis Ababa, led to the six-month grounding of the aircraft model as numerous reports faulted an automated control system which pushed the nose of the jet sharply downward,” the East African reported.
But the allegations of whistle-blower Yonas Yeshanew, Ethiopian Airline’s former chief engineer, who is seeking asylum in the United States has reopened a festering wound.
Yeshanew asserts that someone from the airline had entered the maintenance record system after the crash although he said he was uncertain if anything was altered, before adding that the airlines has a history of falsifying records and signing off on dodgy maintenance and repair jobs.
Ethiopian Airlines said in a statement emailed to AFP that directly after the crash “all relevant hard copy maintenance records of the aircraft involved in the accident” were sealed, stored in a secure place and delivered to investigators.
“All maintenance activities [are] done and pilot remarks reported on the aircraft before the accident are recorded on hard copy documents. Hard copies are the official records of aircraft. The allegation that pilot and technicians’ notes were changed is completely false,” the airline said.
In other news – MaNtuli to sue Hawks and NPA for accusing her of poisoning Jacob Zuma
Those who pursued her were driven by ‘severe political pressure’ under former NDPP Shaun Abrahams, says Ntuli-Zuma’s lawyer. Nompumelelo Ntuli-Zuma, the estranged wife of former president Jacob Zuma, will be suing the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) and the Hawks for “malicious prosecution” after she was accused of involvement in a plot to poison her husband, in what her lawyers said was a charge brought without any real evidence.
Though MaNtuli has been at the centre of the allegations since 2015, she has consistently denied them. Her pending litigation will seek to force the NPA and Hawks to disclose the evidence that justified their decision to identify her as a suspect, The Sowetan reports. Read more
Source: IOL
