The sole Irish victim of a doomed Ethiopian Airlines flight that crashed upon take-off earlier this year is still here in spirit, according to his heart-broken family.

Mick Ryan, from Lahinch, Co Clare was among 149 passengers and eight crew members aboard the Boeing 737 MAX jetliner that crashed shortly after taking off from Addis Ababa en route to Nairobi, Kenya on March 10.

The 39-year-old father-of-two was due to celebrate his 40th birthday in Rome with his wife Naoise just a fortnight after the tragedy claimed his life.

But speaking today on RTE Radio One’s ‘Today with Sean O’Rourke, his widow said she believes the spirit of her late husband is still very much with her and his beloved family.

“He’s around us all the time,” said Naoise Ryan.

“He’s telling us to keep going. For me, he’s there all the time, he’s our strength.”

His mother Christine, who made a pilgrimage to the crash site five days after the tragedy, said she also felt the spirit of her son was at the site, reassuring her.

“I felt he had a certain sense of peace even though the area (crash site) was traumatic,” she said.

“I spoke to him and it really helped me.”

However, his bereaved family said unsubstantiated media reports last week claiming that all of the victims of the crash had been identified through DNA samples was very upsetting.

There is still no official confirmation that all of the crash victims have been identified.

But the false hope of finally being able to put the UN aid worker and civil engineer to rest has been an emotional roller coaster ride, they said.

That accident – as well as the fatal crash of Indonesian Airlines-Lion Air Flight 610 from Jakarta, which crashed into the Java Sea 12 minutes after take-off killing all 189 passengers and crew – led to the global grounding of all Boeing 387 MAX aircraft by 59 airlines.

Today, the Wall Street Journal reported that Boeing’s Chicago-based board is expected to consider revamping the aerospace company’s engineering department in the wake of the crashes.

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