Greek escapes death on Ethiopian flight

A Greek man who was booked to fly on the doomed Ethiopian Airlines plane but lived to tell the tale says he missed the flight "by two minutes."

"I should see it as a second chance," Athenian Antonis Mavropoulos told the Greek broadcaster Skai on Monday.

"I missed it by two minutes, when I arrived, the boarding was closed and I watched the last passengers go in - I screamed to put me in but they didn't allow it," he wrote on his Facebook profile.

All 157 people on board the Boeing 737 MAX 8 were killed when the plane crashed shortly after take-off from Addis Ababa on Sunday.

Mavropoulos missed the flight, which was bound for Nairobi, because an attendant who accompanied him to the airport had arrived late.

He said he was put on the next flight but "intensely protested, because there was enough time for me to board and make my flight," he wrote.

Then security officers pulled him aside and one "told me gently not to protest and thank god instead," informing him of the crash. "At first I thought he was lying."

Mavropoulos then scrambled to inform his family that he was not on the flight and wrote the Facebook post to "bring my feelings under control."

"I was so relieved to be able to write this post and am grateful to live," he said, adding: "Maybe not too old to rock 'n' roll - but certainly too young to die."