It took less than six minutes to deepen one of the gravest crises in the history of Boeing Co.
At 8:37 a.m. on March 10, Captain Yared Getachew and First Officer Ahmed Nur Mohammed were accelerating an Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 737 MAX along runway 07R of Addis Ababa’s highland airport.
The flight conditions were perfect—warm and cloudless—at 8:38 as the jet lifted above the hills to commence the one hour and 40 minute shuttle to Nairobi.
Something almost immediately went wrong. At 8:39, as the jet reached an altitude of 8,100 feet above sea level, just 450 feet above ground, its nose began to pitch down.
