“The safety of the American people and all people is our paramount concern,” US President Donald Trump said Wednesday at the White House, announcing the measure. The order applies to all Max 8 and Max 9 versions of the popular airliner.
President Trump said “Planes that are in the air will be grounded… upon landing at the destination.” He hoped that Boeing will come up “very quickly” with answers to what caused the crash in Ethiopia, but “until they do the planes are grounded.”
Accordingly, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has ordered the temporary grounding of Boeing 737 MAX aircraft (PDF) operated by U.S. airlines or in U.S. territory. The agency made this decision as a result of the data gathering process and new evidence collected at the site and analyzed on Wednesday. This evidence, together with newly refined satellite data available to FAA on Wednesday, led to this decision.
Earlier in the day, Canada banned the 737 Max jets from operating in its airspace, leaving the US as the sole holdout. China led the way in grounding the jets in the wake of the Ethiopian Airlines crash, with the EU following suit, followed by a number of airlines across the world. By Wednesday morning, only the US and Canada were still allowing the 737 Max models to fly.
The White House’s reluctance to ground the jets was understandable, given that Boeing is one of the largest passenger jet manufacturers in the world and a major military contractor. However, it appears the risk of another fatal crash overrode financial and political concerns. The 737 MAX series was introduced in 2016 as the fourth-generation update to the narrow-body airliner that first flew in 1967.
The crash in Ethiopia was the second fatal accident involving the airplane model in five months, following the October 2018 disaster in Indonesia that killed 189. “We are supporting this proactive step out of an abundance of caution,” Boeing said following Trump’s announcement. The company’s shares reacted by tumbling almost 10 points, or 2.5 percent.
The Ethiopian Herald, March 15/2019
