In May 2019 The Washington Post reported that Ethiopian Airlines pushed back after FAA acting chief Daniel Elwell suggested pilots shared blame for the 10 March crash of Flight 302.
Airline officials said their crew had followed emergency procedures and that attention belonged on Boeing’s 737 Max design and certification failures already under global scrutiny. The dispute mattered because families, regulators, and the carrier’s reputation all turned on who owned the fatal minutes after takeoff.
Ethiopian Airlines is a Red Sea and African aviation hub, so the technical fight was never only a U.S. regulatory story. It shaped how passengers and other African carriers judged Max safety.
Kept as ET302 archive, the WaPo file records the airline’s public defense beside parent testimony and Boeing investigation coverage from the same month.
Sources: The Washington Post