After 25 years, covering tragedies like Ethiopian Airlines crash hasn't got any easier

In the quarter of a century since I became a travel journalist, I’ve learned that aviation safety is built upon learning from disasters

“It is not the purpose of this activity to apportion blame or liability.” The preliminary report into the Ethiopian Airlines tragedy on 10 March carries the same caveat as every air accident report I have studied, and uses the same dispassionate language.

One hundred and fifty-seven people died aboard a Boeing 737 Max in the heart of Africa on that awful Sunday morning. I imagine some of the victims’ loved ones desperately want to know who or what is to blame. One day, that will happen.

Yet after a disaster, the first step is to reduce risk to future flyers. Aviation safety is built upon tragedy, on learning from disasters. That is why the conversation on the flight deck and all the key flight data is saved on “crash survivable memory units” to help investigators piece together the last moments of flight.