US sends officials to France to assist probe in crashed Ethiopian Airlines plane's black boxes

The United States on Thursday sent three officials to France to assist with the investigation of the black boxes retrieved from the Boeing 737 Max 8 plane of Ethiopian Airlines that crashed with 157 people on board.

Sputnik cited a statement released by the US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), saying, "The US National Transportation Safety Board is dispatching three investigators to France on Thursday to assist with the downloading and analysis of flight recorders from the Boeing 737 MAX 8 that crashed Sunday near Addis Ababa, Ethiopia."

On Thursday, the black boxes reached France's BEA (Bureau of Enquiry and Analysis for Civil Aviation Safety) air accident investigation agency, where the analysis of the recorded data will be conducted.

The French Bureau of Enquiry and Analysis for Civil Aviation Safety (BEA) will download the flight data recorder and cockpit recorder in support of the Ethiopian Airline investigation, the statement added.

"Yes, the devices have been at BEA since 1 p.m. [local time, 12:00 GMT]," a BEA representative confirmed.

Questions regarding the safety of the widely used Boeing 737 MAX 8 rose after the jets of the said make were involved in two air crashes in the last five months.

On March 10, flight number 302 of the Ethiopian Airlines crashed a few minutes after takeoff from Adis Ababa, killing all 157 people on board.

An aircraft of the same make was also involved in the Lion Airlines plane crash in the Java Sea near Jakarta, Indonesia last year. Here too, the aircraft crashed a few minutes after taking off, claiming the lives of all 189 people on board.