93-3-WMR Audio on Demand presents the Preston and Steve Show podcast.

And now, Preston and Steve's news update with Kathy Romano.

Today is Monday, March 11th. Good morning, Kathy.

Good morning in the news this morning.

An Ethiopian Airlines plane crashed after takeoff Sunday, killing 157 people on board.

Eight Americans were among those killed. The four-month-old Boeing 737-8-Max plane crashed six minutes into its flight to Kenya,

plowing into the ground at 844 a.m. local time, 31 miles south of the capital, where the plane had taken off.

The cause of the crash was not immediately known.

The pilot sent out a distress call and was given clearance to return, according to the airline's CEO.

The new max 8 configuration, a single-isle plane with room for up to 210 passengers was certified

for flight by the United States and European regulators two years ago.

It has two major crashes on its record. In October,

the same model plane operated by Lionair plunged into the Java Sea, taking off just minutes

after taking off from Jakarta, Indonesia. The plane operated by Ethiopian airlines had routine

maintenance on February 4th and had flown 1,200 hours. The pilot had nine years of seniority with the airline.

Overall, the airline's safety record had been on par with other major world airlines.

At least 35 nationalities were among the dead, including 18 Americans, I'm sorry, eight Americans, 32 Kenyans, 18 Canadians,

and there were also 19 humanitarian aid workers on the flight as well. That's wild. So it's four months old, this aircraft that crashed. And I think the average median age of most commercial jets right now is about 18 years. Sure. Yeah. So it's wild. It might be a design issue with this one. It sounds like it's a fairly new aircraft. It's only been around for a couple of years. Right, right. Crashes in that amount of time, that's not a good track record. The plane was carrying 149 passengers and eight crew members. A massive fire has ripped through a North Philadelphia building Monday morning. It broke out at 2 a.m. in the 800 block of West Sedgley Avenue. Heavy fire was shown from the building when crews arrived.

The fire chief says they believe it started in the rear in a pile of tires and rubbish and then

extended into the building. The building is home to a nationwide insurance business.

Traffic was being detoured in the area. The blaze is in close proximity to septa track.

So septa is on the scene. However, they're not reporting any delays as of yet and no injuries

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