An Ethiopian Airlines passenger jet bound for Nairobi crashed minutes after take-off on Sunday, killing all 157 people on board and raising questions about the safety of the Boeing 737 MAX 8, a new model that also crashed in Indonesia in October. Sunday’s flight left Bole airport in Addis Ababa at 8:38 a.m. (0538 GMT), before losing contact with the control tower just a few minutes later at 8:44 a.m. “There are no survivors,” the airline tweeted alongside a picture of CE Tewolde GebreMariam holding up a piece of debris inside a large crater at the crash site. “The pilot mentioned that he had difficulties and that he wanted to return,” Tewolde said. Passengers from 33 countries were aboard, said Tewolde. At least four worked for the United Nations, the airline said, and the UN’s World Food Program director confirmed his organization had lost staff in the accident. Weeping relatives begged for information at airports in Nairobi and Addis Ababa. The aircraft, a 737 MAX 8, is the same model that crashed into the Java Sea shortly after take-off from Jakarta on Oct 29, killing all 189 people on board the Lion Air flight. The cause of that crash is still under investigation. A senior US government official said it was too early to tell if there was any direct connection between the two accidents, but that reviewing the issue would be among the top priorities for investigators. Flight ET 302, registration number ET-AVJ, crashed near the town of Bishoftu, 62 km southeast of the capital Addis Ababa, with 149 passengers and eight crew aboard, the airline said. The flight had unstable vertical speed after take off, the flight tracking website Flightradar24 tweeted. Data released by the Sweden-based service suggested the aircraft had climbed almost 1,000 feet after taking off from Addis Ababa, a hot and high-altitude airport whose thinner air requires extra effort from an aircraft’s engines. It dipped about 450 feet before rapidly climbing another 900 feet until the point where satellite tracking data was lost.<br/>
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For about nine hours, Sead Nikaj’s flight back home to New York from Istanbul was smooth. But as the plane was crossing over Maine on Saturday, it hit a patch of severe turbulence, he said. Nikaj said he watched the woman next to him fly out of her seat. Oxygen masks dropped from the ceiling. People banged their heads, screamed and prayed. For about 10 to 15 minutes — but what felt like an eternity to Nikaj — he thought he was going to die. The Turkish Airlines plane landed safely at Kennedy Airport, but at least 30 people were taken to hospitals with non-life-threatening injuries because of the turbulence, the authorities said. One flight attendant broke her leg, said Steve Coleman, a spokesman for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. The rest of the injuries were minor, and included “bumps, bruises and cuts,” Coleman said. But the turbulence left the plane cabin full of bloodied and shaken passengers. Several ambulances rushed to the airport as the plane landed, in a chaotic scene that Nikaj said he keeps replaying. In a statement, the airline said it was “deeply saddened by this unfortunate experience” and that it was closely monitoring the health status of the injured passengers. The flight, number 001 and a Boeing 777 plane, encountered the turbulence about 45 minutes before it landed at 5:35 p.m., the authorities said. The FAA said that the pilot had declared an emergency and reported that several passengers were injured. Several ambulances arrived at the airport, and 30 people were taken to local hospitals, Coleman said.<br/>
More than 35 United Airlines employees were fired after the company discovered they were abusing their employee travel perks by selling travel passes, which are intended for employees and their friends and family. "United employees at the gate noticed something fishy about a particular group of nine non-revenue pass riders," the company said in an article published on United's internal site. "The three families, who were traveling internationally, stated that they had 'paid for' first class tickets – but they were on non-revenue reservations and were unable to provide the names of the employees who had provided the tickets." Following an investigation, the airline "uncovered a brokering scheme where employees were soliciting pass travel privileges from their colleagues to put up for sale." United discovered some employees gave fake documentation to in order to name travellers as their stepparents or domestic partners. "Some of the employees who gave up their passes received payment, while others were deceived into giving away their pass travel privileges based on the pretext that the passes were for a good friend or a relative (although even that would be against the rules)," the airline stated. The employees involved were fired, United explained, noting "some claimed that they believed that what they were doing was OK, since they had pass travel privileges that weren’t being used."<br/>