Minnesota Resident Killed In Ethiopian Airlines Crash

ST. CLOUD, MN — A Minnesota resident has been identified as one of the passengers killed in the Ethiopian Airlines crash. Mucaad Hussein Abdalla, 31, of St. Cloud was among the 157 victims who died Sunday.

No one aboard the plane survived the crash. The Boeing 737-8 MAX plane lost contact at 8:44 a.m. local time, six minutes after takeoff from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, Ethiopian Airlines said. It was en route to Nairobi, Kenya. The plane crashed near Bishoftu.

Abdalla — a 2008 graduate of Apollo High School — had lived in St. Cloud since 2006.

"He actually departed from Morocco — he was with his wife who he recently married," his cousin Mohamed Warfa told the St. Cloud Times.

"He was very playful guy — very funny, very eloquent," Warfa added. "He was very generous."

A GoFundMe page has been established to raise funds for Abdalla's family.

Victims of the crash included 32 Kenyans, 18 Canadians, nine Ethiopians, eight Italians, and eight Americans, according to the Ethiopian Airlines.

Alessia Grunberger, Patch Staff, contributed to this report