The Federal Aviation Administration on Wednesday grounded all Boeing 737 Max jets in the U.S., citing new evidence that showed similarities between two fatal crashes of the planes that have killed 346 people in less than five months.
Leslie Josephs and Kevin Breuninger of CNBC.com had the news:
The move marks a stunning turnaround for the U.S., which has stood by the American-made aircraft as dozens of countries around the world grounded the planes.
The crash of Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 on Sunday came less than five months after a Lion Air Boeing 737 Max 8 — the same type of plane — plunged into the Java Sea minutes into the flight from Jakarta, Indonesia, killing all 189 people on board. Both planes were new, delivered from Boeing just months before their doomed flights.
The FAA said the grounding will remain in effect while it investigates the crash.
“An FAA team is in Ethiopia assisting the NTSB as parties to the investigation of the Flight 302 accident,” it said in a statement.
Farnoush Amiri and Ben Kesslen of NBC News reported that the black boxes in Sunday’s crash are en route to France:
Meanwhile, the investigation into Sunday’s crash is proceeding with the black boxes from the jet to be sent to France on Wednesday night for examination.
United States airports and airlines reacted to the order Wednesday, acknowledging that it will lead to canceled flights.
Miami International Airport said it expected 19 departures to be canceled Wednesday. Three Boeing Max 8 or Max 9s had landed by about midafternoon Wednesday, the airport’s spokesman, Greg Chin, said. “We expect about 10 more to land here today,” most of them American Airlines flights.
American has roughly 85 flights a day on the Boeing Max 8 and Max 9 jets. United Airlines has about 40 such flights. Southwest Airlines has the most, about 150 flights per day on these types of jets out of the airline’s total of about 4,100 flights daily.
Nicole Darrah of Fox News reported that Canada also banned the jets:
The news comes after Canada’s transport minister earlier Wednesday announced the country would be barring the Max 8 jet from its airspace, saying satellite tracking data showed possible but unproven similarities between the Ethiopian Airliner crash and a previous crash involving the model five months ago.
The president said that the U.S. worked in conjunction with Canada to make the decision to ground the planes. He added that his administration is also working closely with Boeing and other countries on the matter.
“Boeing is an incredible company,” Trump said. “They are working very, very hard right now, and hopefully they’ll very quickly come up with the answer.”
Boeing in a statement said the company “continues to have full confidence of the safety of the 737 MAX.”
