Ethiopian Airlines CEO says preliminary crash report 'may be this week or next'

Ethiopian Airlines Chief Executive Officer Tewolde Gebremariam said on Monday he expected the preliminary release of a report into the March 10 crash of its Boeing 737 800 MAX "maybe this week or next week".

Tewolde told Reuters the airline may or may not attend a briefing in the United States by Boeing about a planned update to software that is a focus of investigation in two deadly crashes that have prompted worldwide groundings of the 737 MAX. 

Tewolde had said it will work with investigators in Ethiopia, the United States and elsewhere "to figure out what went wrong with flight 302".

His pledge follows reports the investigation was under strain because information about the March 10 crash, which killed 157 people, was not being shared with international partners.

Planemaker Boeing has come under intense scrutiny since the crash was the second in five months involving its new 737 MAX 8 model.

But Tewolde said the airline's relationship with Boeing was sound.

"Despite the tragedy, Boeing and Ethiopian Airlines will continue to be linked well into the future," he said.

"We pledge to work with Boeing and our colleagues in all the airlines to make air travel even safer."

Boeing's 737 MAX fleet has been grounded worldwide since the crash, wiping $28 billion off the company's market value and throwing doubt over advance orders of the plane, worth more than $500 billion.

"I fully support this. Until we have answers, putting one more life at risk is too much," Tewolde said of the grounding.