Ethiopian Airlines cancels Lilongwe-Cairo flight after fault: Black box found from crashed flight

Scores of passengers who were supposed to board an Ethiopian Airline aircraft from Lilongwe to Cairo  through Addis Ababa were stranded on Sunday at Kamuzu International Airport  in Lilongwe after the airline cancelled the flight.

The Ethiopian Airline general manager in Malawi has confirmed the cancellation, saying the ET 876 aircraft developed a fault.

“It was a minor fault but we did not want to take a chance, this is why we cancelled the flight until Monday when another aircraft will be coming,” said the general manager.

The passengers are expected to leave Monday afternoon.

The general manager could however not say what the fault was but it came barely hours after the company’s Boeing 737 flying from Ethiopia to Kenya crashed, killing all 157 people on board.

BBC says Ethiopian authorities are yet to establish the cause of the crash, just 10 minutes into the air with 149 passengers and eight crew members.

Ethiopian Airlines run the Malawi aircrafts in a public/private sector agreement.

The airlines, the biggest in Africa, has a good safety record and the BBC says the aircraft was new, it was delivered to the airlines in November last year.

Another new Boeing 737 crashed in Indonesia last year.

Meanwhile, Ethiopian state-run TV is reporting that crews have recovered the black box from the plane that crashed Sunday.