Responding to the second crash of a Boeing 737 Max 8 soon after takeoff in less than five months, China ordered its airlines on Monday morning to ground all 96 of the aircraft that they operate. The Civil Aviation Administration of China noted in its announcement of the grounding that both the Ethiopian Airlines crash […]
Responding to the second crash of a Boeing 737 Max 8 soon after takeoff in less than five months, China ordered its airlines on Monday morning to ground all 96 of the aircraft that they operate.
The Civil Aviation Administration of China noted in its announcement of the grounding that both the Ethiopian Airlines crash on Sunday and a Lion Air crash in Indonesia in late October had involved very recently delivered Boeing 737 Max 8 aircraft that crashed soon after takeoff.
The Chinese aviation regulator said in its announcement that it had notified Chinese air carriers at 9 a.m. that they had nine hours to take the planes out of service.
But the state-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission, a government agency that oversees the Chinese government’s large stakes in airlines and many other industries, announced on Weibo, a social media site, just an hour later that all of the carriers’ 96 Boeing 737 Max 8s had already been grounded, although the posting was later deleted.
Flight tracking websites showed that Chinese airlines were substituting Boeing 737-800s on Monday morning on routes where they had previously operated a Boeing 737 Max 8.
China’s main airlines are among the biggest users so far of the new Boeing jets, having taken delivery of most of the planes they have ordered so far. By contrast, many other carriers, often in slower-growing markets than China’s, have taken delivery of only a small fraction of their orders for the Boeing 737 Max 8.
Separately, Boeing said it was postponing the external debut of its 777X plane, which had been planned for Wednesday. The company took the action in a statement in which it said it was “deeply saddened” by the Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 accident.
Crdt: NY TIMES
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