The heartbroken daughter of an 'incredible' father killed in a plane crash has spoken of his final words before boarding the ill-fated flight.
Joseph Waithaka tragically died in March 2019 as a passenger on the Boeing 737 that came down in Ethiopia just minutes after take off, Hull Live reports.
The 55-year-old, who was travelling to go and help children in Kenya, was flying out of Addis Ababz on March 10 - unaware of the issues with plane he was stepping onto.
Before boarding, the former probation officer called his daughter Zipporah, saying to her: "I love you".
“I think I was the last phone call he made," the Hull student said.
"He just called me to tell me he loved me, and that he would call me when he got to the other side, which never happened. But I am glad that we got to speak.”
The father-of-five, who was one of seven British passengers aboard the flight, was killed instantly, leaving Zipporah with nothing but a fragment of shrapnel which she now carries everywhere with her.
Joseph's death features in the new Netflix documentary, Downfall: The Case Against Boeing, which exposes how experts believed the aircraft were potentially unsafe.
One of the American company's new aircraft crashed into the sea near Indonesia in 2018, a tragedy in which 189 people perished.
Despite this, the aviation giants insisted the crash was due to errors made by the pilot and insisted the planes were safe.
In the new documentary, aviation experts reveal how the jets were thought to be so unsafe, that one may crash every two years.
Only five months after the 2018 crash, 157 people including Joseph were killed in the Ethiopia crash.
Boeing admitted full responsibility for the crash in November and were fined £18.5bn, but despite this, the company's boss has never faced criminal charges - instead receiving a huge pay off.
Despite the 737 Max now being cleared as safe to fly, Zipporah still refuses to board one.
Speaking to The Sun, Zipporah said: “For me there are still big questions that Boeing is yet to answer and I wouldn’t fly on a 737 Max.
“There was an opportunity to honour my dad in Utah, and I saw that one of my connecting flights was a 737, and so I cancelled the flight and tried to rebook.
“I have to look at which model of plane I will be flying on.”
An internal report following the Ethiopia crash revealed that pilots reacting in less than 10 seconds to the activation of a system known as 'MCAS' could result in catastrophic failures.
But the Netflix documentary reveals how Boeing allegedly didn't tell pilots about MCAS, let alone train them in how to deal with such an emergency.
Boeing's problems began when its main competitor, Airbus, designed a far more fuel-efficient jet, prompting them to come up with something even better fast.
Rather than designing a new plane from scratch, Boeing updated its 737 to save time.
The decision to put larger engines further forward on the existing frame meant that software, called Manoeuvring Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS), was needed to automatically push the plane’s nose down in certain scenarios.
But while there were two sensors for dealing with high speed issues, there was only one for low speeds.
Engineers who expressed concern that this left the plane vulnerable if that one sensor was faulty were overruled.
The Max was certified to fly in March 2017 and became the company’s biggest ever seller.
Just 18 months later, Lion Air flight 610 from Jakarta in Indonesia plummeted into the Java Sea in good weather 13 minutes after take off.
Swiftly it was put down to "pilot error".
Over 400 people turned up for Joseph's memorial service in Hull, which was a sign of his status in the East Yorkshire community.
Describing her “tea loving” dad, Zipporah continues: “My father was an incredible man. He was a humanitarian through and through.
“He was a loving and present father. I have to look at my two younger sisters and imagine a world where he doesn’t exist and I can’t imagine what that is like.”
Following the crash, CEO Muilenburg was asked to resign, but he received a £46m pay off that enraged the families of those who died.
Zipporah says: “Muilenburg received a pay off and my dad, who was the same age as Muilenberg, paid for that with his life.”
In January 2021 Boeing admitted conspiring to defraud the United States for misleading statements and agreed to pay the £1.85bn fine.
Downfall: The Case Against Boeing, is available to stream now on Netflix UK.
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