Loss & Pain

The Test of Faith: Through It All

2 years since the Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 crashed

It’s been two years since the Boeing 737 Max 8 aircraft crashed. This fatal incident occurred on 10th March 2019 when an Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 travelling from Addis Ababa Bole International Airport in Ethiopia to Jomo Kenyatta International Airport in Nairobi, Kenya crashed killing its 157 passengers, including flight crew.

In the aftermath of this crash, religious communities, individuals of faith, Christians, Muslims, I mean people whose lives hinge on a belief in a supernatural existence like God were all found reeling in their faith, questioning God or whosoever according to their beliefs is the big man coordinating the affairs of this world. Why did he not intervene?

A friend asked me why God did not use the technical issue on the plane as an opportunity to reveal himself to the crew and the passengers and subsequently miraculously land the plane safely with no fatalities? How much profound a testimony that could have been. How staggering the numbers that would have gone out with this testimony of a God who is real and a God who can save.

To be honest, this was exactly how I felt — my very reaction when I first heard the news. I questioned and wondering why? Why did God not intervene? Why did such evil happen? Why? Why? My spirit was bruised, even downtrodden for the rest of that day, hearing that all 157 passengers aboard perished, leaving no survivors. Just like my friend, I was grappling with the big question of why?

I went through my day completely run-down, now and then coming across the news again on many social platforms and major television broadcasts. But in the evening, as I recoiled into the comfort and safety of my bed, I received encouragement and a guarantee, and it restored my hope.

The Test of Faith: Through It All

This was the hard and difficult message I received in my spirit that evening after an emotionally excruciating day coming across many coverages of the crash of the Boeing 737 Max 8, with the entire aviation industry racing to find answers to the pressing question of why the plane crashed.

Pain and loss are nothing pleasant and nobody goes around clamoring for an experience with pain and loss. And so, with the unfortunate incident of the Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302, it’s extremely hard and beyond our human understanding why God did not intervene. Why God did not rescue the 157 passengers to the glory of His name. I don’t have an answer to this important and relevant question. But somehow we are still called and encouraged to not waver in our faith, a call that feels completely odd and unreasonable with an incident like this.

The fall of the Boeing 737 Max 8 brought to over 35 nationalities grave pain and loss. A loss that left a father without the hugs of his wife and 3 children, 21 UN officials never again embarking on official duties. Foreign tourists whose adventures ended rather abruptly without a chance to complete them. Many beautiful souls with beautiful stories, all perished in a matter of minutes. Wikipedia has recorded the crash as the deadliest accident involving an Ethiopian Airlines aircraft to date.

This month marks two years since this unfortunate disaster and I’m still affected by it. It’s imprinted on my mind as one of the emotionally wrecking days in my life, and very much so families who lost loved ones on that day. It remains fresh in my mind like it happened yesterday. My questions on why remain unanswered.

Pain, loss, and misery continue to plague our world, and I continually ask God why. Why would you allow so much evil to thrive? I still don’t have a satisfactory answer, at least one that will appeal to my human reasoning. But every time I ask God why, I hear him respond quietly: It is the test of faith: through it all.

This verse of scripture 1 Peter 1:7 speaks and comfort me whenever I’m out of control and I’m wondering why God allows something as bad as the crash of the Boeing 737 Max. It encourages me to keep believing and trusting in God; that through it all I will still hold on, and look up to Him, and believe His master plan, whether that plan has me dead or alive. Even if my death happens to be on an airplane.

That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ (1 Peter 1:7)

I have experienced personal loss before, and so I understand that we never get over a loss. We however are blessed with the grace of time to learn how to manage it and to live with it. We learn to wake up every single day with memories and thoughts of them and still harness strength to go out and forge forward a life for ourselves. We choose to have their memories push us to strive forward and experience life as best as we can.

We never get over loss, but we are blessed with the grace of time to learn to manager it and live with it.

My condolences to the families that lost loved ones on that fateful day. I can only imagine how hard the journey has been since then. I pray you continue to find the strength to carry on, remaining anchored in your faith and belief.

Following the accident, all Boeing 737 MAX aircraft were grounded worldwide by aviation authorities and government regulators around the world. The US Federal Aviation Administration(FAA), after her initial support of the Boeing 737 Max aircraft’s safety would later follow suit days later to ground all 737 Max models, prohibiting their operations in the territory of the United States. This prohibition came after findings connected the crash of the Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 to another Boeing 737 Max aircraft which crashed 5 months earlier in Indonesia.

Investigation reports released over two years reveal the following.

The Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau preliminary reports released on March 10, 2019, revealed these facts in their initial findings

• The aircraft possessed a valid certificate of airworthiness
• The flight crew possessed the license and qualifications to conduct the flight
• The takeoff roll appeared normal, including normal values of left and right angle-of-attack (AOA)
• Shortly after liftoff, the value of the left angle of attack sensor deviated from the right one and reached 74.5 degrees while the right angle of attack sensor value was 15.3 degrees;
• After autopilot engagement, there were small-amplitude roll oscillations accompanied by lateral acceleration, rudder oscillations, and slight heading changes; these oscillations also continued after the autopilot disengaged.
• After the autopilot disengaged, the DFDR recorded an automatic aircraft's nose down (AND) trim command four times without the pilot’s input. As a result, three motions of the stabilizer trim were recorded. The FDR data also showed that the crew used the electric manual trim to counter the automatic AND input.
• The crew performed a runway stabilizer checklist and put the stab trim cutout switch to cutout position and confirmed that the manual trim operation was not working.

A United States Congressional report cites the following as factors that influenced the crash of the Boeing 737 Max as

• Production Pressures: There was tremendous financial pressure on Boeing and the 737 MAX program to compete with Airbus’ new A320neo aircraft rushing them into production.
• Faulty Design and Performance Assumptions: Boeing made fundamentally faulty assumptions about critical technologies on the 737 MAX, most notably with MCAS.
• Culture of Concealment: In several critical instances, Boeing withheld crucial information from the FAA, its customers, and 737 MAX pilots. This included concealing the very existence of MCAS from 737 MAX pilots63 and failing to disclose that the AOA Disagree alert was inoperable on the vast majority of the 737 MAX fleet
• Conflicted Representation: The Committee found that the FAA’s current oversight structure concerning Boeing creates inherent conflicts of interest that have jeopardized the safety of the flying public.
• AOA sensor miscalculation triggered activation of the MCA flight control system, which caused the plane to nose dive multiple times, with the pilots fighting the MCA to pull out of the nosedive to restore control of the aircraft.

The FAA as of 18th November 2020 ungrounded and permitted the resumption of operations of Boeing 737 Max airliners across the territory of the United States. Many airlines as of 2021 have resumed flight operations with the 737 Max.

Bloomberg News reported that Ethiopian Airlines would resume operations with the Boeing 737 Max jets in July. This is after thoroughly reviewing changes made to the model.