Chinedu Eze with agency reports
The United States President, Donald Trump yesterday issued executive order and banned Boeing 737MAX in the country’s airspace.
This came after the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) banned the aircraft in the 28-member state airspace.
These are part of the reactions to the fatal accident of Ethiopian Airlines Flight ET302, operated by B737MAX 8, which crashed on Sunday six minutes after take-off from Addis Ababa on its way to Nairobi, Kenya, killing all 157 persons on board.
The crash alarmed the world because about five months ago the same aircraft type operated by Lion Air of Indonesia crashed, killing 189 persons onboard in a similar manner.
The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) had initially assured on the safety of the aircraft, forcing Trump to use executive order to ban the B737MAX jets.
According to CNBC, of the more than 350 Boeing 737 MAX jets in global fleets, 74 are flown by U.S. airlines, FAA said.
These include United Airlines, American Airlines and Southwest Airlines.
President Trump said he issued an executive order grounding all Boeing 737 Max jets, following the second major crash within five months.
Trump said he came to the decision after speaking with Boeing’s CEO, Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao and the acting head of the Federal Aviation Administration, Daniel Elwell.
“They are all in agreement with the action. Any plane currently in the air will go to its destination and thereafter be grounded until further notice,” Trump told reporters at the White House on Wednesday.
The FAA followed suit shortly after Trump’s comments, “The FAA is ordering the temporary grounding of Boeing 737 MAX aircraft operated by US airlines or in US territory. The agency made this decision as a result of the data gathering process and new evidence collected at the site and analysed today. This evidence, together with newly refined satellite data available to FAA this morning, led to this decision.”
US said the grounding would remain in effect pending further investigation, including examination of information from the aircraft’s flight data recorders and cockpit voice recorders.
