UPDATE: No survivors from Ethiopian plane crash

There were no survivors from an Ethiopian Airlines flight that crashed with 149 passengers and eight crew members aboard, the state broadcaster said on Sunday.

“There are no survivors onboard the flight, which carried passengers from 33 countries,” said state-run Ethiopian Broadcasting Corporation, quoting an unidentified source at the airline.

Meanwhile, Swedish flight-tracking website flightradar24 said the plane “had unstable vertical speed”.

“Data from Flightradar24 ADS-B network show that vertical speed was unstable after take off,” the Swedish-based flight tracking organisation said on its Twitter feed.

The plane crashed en route from Addis Ababa to Nairobi with 149 passengers and eight crew believed to be on board, Ethiopian Airlines said.

“We hereby confirm that our scheduled flight ET 302 from Addis Ababa to Nairobi was involved in accident today,” the airline said in a statement.

“It is believed that there were 149 passengers and eight crew on board the flight but we are currently confirming the details of the passenger manifest for the flight.”

The airline said “search and rescue operations are in progress and we have no confirmed information about survivors or any possible casualties.”

The plane took off at 8.38am from Bole International Airport and “lost contact” six minutes later near Bishoftu, a town some 60 kilometres southeast of Addis Ababa by road.

Ethiopian Airlines said it would send staff to the accident scene to “do everything possible to assist the emergency services.”

It would also set up a passenger information centre and a dedicated telephone number for family and friends of people who may have been on the flight.

Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s office tweeted it “would like to express its deepest condolences to the families of those that have lost their loved ones on Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 737 on regular scheduled flight to Nairobi, Kenya this morning