Ethiopian Airlines, the national airline of Ethiopia,[1] has a good safety record.[2][3][4] As of March 2019[update], the Aviation Safety Network records 64 accidents/incidents for Ethiopian Airlines that total 459 fatalities since 1965,[5] plus six accidents for Ethiopian Air Lines, the airline's former name.[6] Since July 1948, the company wrote off 36 aircraft, including three Boeing 707s, three Boeing 737s, one Boeing 767, two Douglas DC-3s, two Douglas DC-6, one de Havilland Canada DHC-5 Buffalo, two de Havilland Canada DHC-6 Twin Otters, 21 subtypes of the Douglas C-47, one Lockheed L-749 Constellation and one Lockheed L-100 Hercules.
Ethiopian's deadliest aircraft incident took place on 10 March 2019, when a Boeing 737 MAX 8, barely four months old, crashed shortly after takeoff en route from Addis Ababa to Nairobi; all 157 people on board perished. Until then, the airline's most infamous accident occurred on 23 November 1996, when a hijacked Boeing 767-200ER crashed into the Indian Ocean off the coast of the Comoros Islands due to fuel starvation, killing 125 of the 175 passengers and crew on board. The third-deadliest accident took place in January 2010 and involved a Boeing 737-800 that had just departed Beirut–Rafic Hariri International Airport and crashed into the Mediterranean Sea, off the coast of Lebanon; there were 90 people on board, of whom none survived. The crash of a Boeing 737-200 at Bahir Dar Airport in September 1988 ranks as the carrier's fourth-deadliest accident, with 35 fatalities, out of 104 people on board.
Following is a list of accidents and incidents involving Ethiopian Airlines aircraft. It includes hijackings, events involving fatalities and/or events causing damage beyond repair to the aircraft.
- ^ "Ethiopian Air Says All Crash Bodies Recovered". Airwise News. Reuters. 23 February 2010. Archived from the original on 18 February 2011. Retrieved 11 January 2013.
- ^ Cite error: The named reference
Witnesses: Ethiopian plane tumbled out of sky off Lebanonwas invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ Cite error: The named reference
Profile: Ethiopian Airlineswas invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ Cite error: The named reference
Ethiopian Airlines jet crashes into sea off Beirutwas invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ "Accident record for Ethiopian Airlines". Aviation Safety Network. Archived from the original on 10 March 2019. Retrieved 10 March 2019.
- ^ "Accident record for Ethiopian Air Lines". Aviation Safety Network. 28 November 2004. Archived from the original on 2 February 2014. Retrieved 17 June 2011.