A video of a Russian couple showing their final moments together before they boarded the ill-fated Ethiopian Airlines flight has emerged online.
The Russian couple featured in the video were identified to be ex-model Ekaterina Polyakova and her husband Alexander Polyakov.
The couple, both aged 28, reportedly loved to travel and were on their way to Kenya for a vacation when the accident happened.
The video which seems to be uploaded on Ekaterina’s social media account was taken at Addis Ababa airport when she and her husband were on a bus about to board the plane.
“1.5 hour transfer and we are flying to Kenya,” Ekaterina captioned the video.
In follow-up reports, Elena Polyakova, the mother of Ekaterina, was left was heartbroken and said she tried to talk her daughter out of flying because she ‘had a bad feeling’.
After the couple died in the plane crash, their friend, family, and colleagues have paid tribute and remembered them on social media.
Both of them worked in a Russian bank where Ekaterina was an accountant and her husband was a coder.
According to the airlines’ bulletin, the Boeing 737 plane, carrying 149 passengers and eight crew members, was on regular scheduled flight to Nairobi when it crashed at around 8:44am Sunday.
The plane took off from Addis Ababa at 8:38am local time.
Harro Ranter, founder of the Aviation Safety Network, which compiles information about accidents worldwide, quoted the Ethiopian Airlines CEO to have said, “There were no defects prior to the flight, so it is hard to see any parallels with the Lion Air crash yet.”
The Ethiopian plane was new, having been delivered to the airline in November.
The CEO of Ethiopian Airlines earlier listed more than 30 nationalities of passengers who were killed in the plane, including 32 Kenyans, 18 Canadians, nine Ethiopians, eight Italians, eight Chinese citizens, eight Americans, seven British citizens, seven French citizens, six Egyptians, five Dutch citizens, four Indians, four people from Slovakia, three Austrians, three Swedes, three Russians, two Moroccans, two Spaniards, two Poles and two Israelis.
Reportedly, there was also one citizen from each of the following countries: Belgium, Indonesia, Somalia, Norway, Serbia, Togo, Mozambique, Rwanda, Sudan, Uganda, and Yemen.
Authorities are still identifying the cause of the crash.
