President Trump announced that the United States was grounding Boeing’s 737 Max aircraft, reversing an earlier decision by American regulators to keep the jets flying in the wake of a second deadly crash involving one of the jets in Ethiopia.
- U.S. President Donald Trump said he issued an executive order grounding all Boeing 737 Max jets.
- Of the more than 350 Boeing 737 Max jets in global fleets, 74 are flown by U.S. airlines, according to the FAA.
- Those include United Airlines, American Airlines and Southwest Airlines.
President Trump, speaking Wednesday afternoon at the White House, announced that the US would be issuing an “emergency order to ground all 737 Max 8 and the 737 Max 9, and planes associated with that line.”
He added that both the FAA and Boeing were “in agreement with the action,” and any planes currently in the air would continue to their destination where they will be grounded.
“Pilots have been notified, airlines have been all notified. Airlines are agreeing with this. The safety of the American people and all people is our paramount concern,” the President said.
The Federal Aviation Administration had for days resisted calls to ground the plane even as safety regulators in some 42 countries had banned flights by the jets. As recently as Tuesday, the agency said it had seen “no systemic performance issues” that would prompt it to halt flights of the jet.
The order came hours after Canada’s transport minister said that newly available satellite-tracking data suggested similarities between the crash in Ethiopia and another accident last October.
The crash of Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 killed all 157 people on board, and took place just minutes after takeoff. In October, a 737 Max 8 operated by Lion Air, an Indonesian carrier, crashed in similar circumstance and 189 people were killed.
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