Mass funeral for victims of jet crash in Ethiopia draws scores

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia — Thousands mourned the Ethiopian plane crash victims on Sunday, accompanying 17 empty caskets draped in the national flag through the streets of the capital.

The service came a day after officials began delivering bags of earth to family members of the 157 victims of the crash instead of the remains of their loved ones because the identification process is expected to take months. Family members said they were given a 1 kilogram (2.2 pound) sack of earth taken from the crash site outside the capital of Addis Ababa.

The victims on Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 came from 35 countries and included many humanitarian workers headed to Nairobi.

Elias Bilew said he had worked with one of the victims, Sintayehu Shafi, for the past eight years.

“He was such a good person,” Bilew said. “He doesn’t deserve this. He was the pillar for his whole family.”

French investigators said they had successfully downloaded the cockpit recorder data and had transferred it to the Ethiopian investigation team. Work on the flight data recorder resumed Sunday.

Experts from the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board and the plane’s manufacturer Boeing are among those involved in the probe.

The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration has said satellite-based tracking data shows that the movements of Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 were similar to those of Lion Air Flight 610, which crashed off Indonesia in October, killing 189 people. Both involved Boeing 737 Max 8 planes. Ethiopia’s transport minister, Dagmawit Moges, said Sunday that preliminary data from the plane’s recorders confirms the similarity.

The United States and many other countries have now grounded the Max 8s as Boeing faces the challenge of proving the jets are safe to fly.

Elias Meseret is an...