Ethiopian Airlines has grounded its Boeing 737 Max fleet. All four aircraft remain on the ground in Addis Ababa.
In a statement released on Sunday, Ethiopian Airlines said:
“Although we don’t yet know the cause of the accident, we had to decide to ground the particular fleet as extra safety precaution while investigations into the crash continue.”
China’s civil aviation administration has grounded Chinese-operated #737MAX aircraft. According to our database, this action affects 13 airlines and nearly 100 individual aircraft.
— Flightradar24 (@flightradar24) March 11, 2019
CAAC statement: https://t.co/Sh1gJTSeag pic.twitter.com/NeQG1bOJJT
Bloomberg, citing Caijing, reports that China has asked domestic operators to ground their 737 MAX aircraft. While we have yet been unable to officially confirm such, this is the number of 737 MAX flights above China now vs. the same time last week.
China’s civil aviation administration has grounded Chinese-operated #737MAX aircraft. According to our database, this action affects 13 airlines and nearly 100 individual aircraft.
The decision comes in the wake of a crash by an Ethiopia Airline Boeing 737 Max flight which was flying from Addis Ababa to Nairobi early on Sunday morning.
The crash claimed the lives of all 149 passengers and eight crew members who were on board.
Before the Boeing 737 airplane took off from Bole International Airport in Addis Ababa, it had arrived from Johannesburg, South Africa.
It has also been reported that Captain Yared Getachew informed the Ethiopian radar control about the difficulties and was cleared to turn back and land at Bole.
FlightRadar24, a Swedish website that tracks, origins and destinations, flight numbers, aircraft types, positions, altitudes, headings, and speeds indicated that the plane’s momentum was unstable two minutes into the flight.
The instability persisted for the next three minutes and the plane maintained an average altitude of 7,500 feet, with a speed of 600 knots (about 1,100km/h) before the tracking site lost its position.
Following the accident, the Chinese government has also grounded all Boeing 737 MAX 8 jets. The Boeing is the same model with the Ethiopian Airline that crashed shortly after take off.
The Civil Aviation Administration of China said in a statement on Monday morning that all domestic Boeing 737 MAX 8 jets must be out of the air by 6 pm local time, due to its principle of “zero tolerance for safety hazards.”