The ABC has apologised after one of its news reports on the Ethiopian Airlines crash was shown on some of Virgin Australia’s flights.

Virgin aired an ABC News report on the fatal crash during an in-flight bulletin on all domestic flights on Monday, leaving many passengers distressed and Virgin furious, according to The Guardian.

Virgin has an agreed process with the ABC that it will be notified by the broadcaster if there are any unsuitable aviation stories in its in-flight bulletins, so that the airline can elect not to play them.

However, the ABC did not follow the process in this case.

A Virgin Australia spokesperson that the airline was “concerned with reports of distress caused to our passengers due to an unsuitable broadcast during our in-flight ABC News bulletin”.

“We have been in contact with the ABC and understand this was due to human error on its part. We are, of course, working with the ABC to ensure this does not happen again.

In a statement to Travel Weekly, an ABC spokesperson said: “The ABC has a process to alert Virgin to any potentially sensitive content in-flight news bulletins may contain.