Ethiopian Airlines plane crash: 8 Chinese among 157 victims

149 passengers of more than 30 nationalities and eight crew died

An Ethiopian Airlines flight crashed shortly after takeoff from Ethiopia's capital on Sunday morning, killing all 157 on board, authorities said, as grieving families rushed to airports in Addis Ababa and the destination, Nairobi. Eight Chinese citizens are among the dead.

It was not immediately clear what caused the crash of the Boeing 737-8 MAX plane, which was new and had been delivered to the airline in November. Its last maintenance was on Feb 4 and it had flown just 1,200 hours, according to the airline's CEO Tewolde Gebremariam.

He also told reporters that the pilot, who was a senior one and joined the airline in 2010, sent out a distress call and was given clearance to return.

The plane crashed six minutes after departing Addis Ababa on its way to Kenya's capital, plowing into the ground at Hejere near Bishoftu, or Debre Zeit, about 50 kilometers south of Addis Ababa, at 8:44 am local time.