An Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 737 passenger jet has crashed on a flight from Addis Ababa to Nairobi in Kenya.
The flight is believed to have had 149 passengers and eight crew members on board, the airline says.
A spokesman said the crash happened at 08.44 local time on Sunday, shortly after take-off from the Ethiopian capital.
Ethiopia’s prime minister offered condolences to victims’ families.
“We hereby confirm that our scheduled flight ET 302 from Addis Ababa to Nairobi was involved in accident today,” the airline said in a statement on Sunday.
“It is believed that there were 149 passengers and eight crew on board the flight but we are currently confirming the details of the passenger manifest for the flight.”
The airline said “search and rescue operations are in progress and we have no confirmed information about survivors or any possible casualties.”
“Ethiopian Airlines staff will be sent to the accident scene and will do everything possible to assist the emergency services,” the statement added.
The plane took off at 8:38am (06:38 GMT) from Bole International Airport and “lost contact” six minutes later near Bishoftu, a town some 60km southeast of Addis Ababa by road.
The airline flies to many destinations in Africa, making it a popular carrier in a continent where many airlines fly only from their home country to destinations outside Africa.
It has a good reputation for safety, although in 2010 one of the company’s aeroplanes crashed in the Mediterranean Sea shortly after leaving Beirut.
The incident killed 90 people on board.
The airline’s highest fatalities to date came in a November 1996 crash during a hijacking on a flight from Addis Ababa to Nairobi.
One of the aeroplane’s engines stopped when the fuel ran out and although pilots attempted an emergency water landing, they hit a coral reef in the Indian Ocean and 123 of the 175 people on board were killed.
