Why has there been no crashes or reports of this issue by pilots in the US where the majority of Max's are located? I suggest weather (humidity) as both Indonesia and Ethiopia are near the equator. Could a Qantas, United, Virgin, BA pilot etc save the plane in a extremely overloaded scenario at low altitude
There have been 2x 737M8 crashes - one was weather independent , and the other at ADD when airfield weather was good, light winds, cool temps 18C and 10km visibility.
Events like these are fortunately rare, it is still rare in spite of what happened. Why did not not happen elsewhere?. Usually in an aircraft crash , a sequence of unfortunate events need to take place which fortunately has not occurred elsewhere. Maybe luck, training, governance, culture etc or some or all of the above. It’s too early to tell.
Note that ADD is 2334m (7657ft) elevation
Compared with say Denver at 1655m (5249ft).
Hot and high would be an issue for takeoff weight but it was cool and high on 10March.
ADD does apparently have lots of birds.
The ET 737M8 seats 16J/138Y = 154 pax.
ADD-NBO is 719miles (similar to ADL-SYD)
Overloaded?. Can’t say because data relating to ET302 is not in however the flight was not full and the mission range was nowhere near what it is capable of. So I would speculate that it was not overloaded.