RTMon, 11 Mar 2019 12:38 UTC
© 1 Boeing 737, boeing.com
The crash came less than five months after
another brand new 737 MAX 8, belonging to Indonesian airline Lion Air, fell into the Java Sea just 13 minutes after takeoff from Jakarta, killing all 189 on board.On Monday, the Indonesian Transport Ministry called for the temporary grounding of all Boeing 737 Max 8 planes operated by the country's air carriers.
The step comes shortly after the
China's Civil Aviation Administration ordered Chinese carriers to take the planes out of service.
At the same time,
Ethiopian Airlines Group announced temporary ban on operating four 737 MAX planes left in its fleet after the crash, citing a "safety precaution."
Cayman Airways, which also flies the Boeing 737 Max 8 aircraft, said it was placing a temporary ban on using the jets in the light of the latest incident, while South Korea reportedly launched a special inspection of the aircraft.
On Monday,
Mongolia's Civil Aviation Authority followed suit. The regulator said it ordered the national air carrier MIAT to temporarily suspend its Boeing 737 MAX aircraft operations.
Meanwhile, the CEO of Royal Air Maroc, Abdelhamid Addou, said the company would suspend all commercial flights carried out on the jet.
Boeing's 737 line was considered to be among the most reliable and has been the best-selling aircraft in the airline industry.
The US company reportedly secured orders for over 5,000 jets from the line worldwide since 2017. Primarily used for short and medium-haul flights, more than 300 Boeing 737-MAX planes are operated by nearly 30 carriers across the world.
Comment: Is it a design flaw? A manufacturing failure? Sabotage? Whatever the definitive answer, the current outlook does not bode well for Boeing. While many countries are playing it safe by canceling flights, Boeing is waffling whether or not it should ground the planes globally.
China
grounded its 737 MAX fleet, emphasizing its zero-tolerance principle on safety hazards and offered the following observation:
"Given that two accidents both involved newly delivered Boeing 737-8 planes and happened during take-off phase, they have some degree of similarity," the Civil Aviation Administration of China said Monday.
While Boeing has sent an investigative team to get to the bottom of the tragedy, Swedish flight-tracking website flightradar24 said the jet displayed an "unstable vertical speed" during its takeoff.
Ethiopian Airlines also
grounded its fleet:
The Ethiopian Airlines Group has four 737 MAX planes left in its fleet, and orders for an additional 25 placed with Boeing. The decision to ground the fleet until further notice came after Flight 302 crashed on Sunday morning, minutes after takeoff, killing everyone on board.
Hold the champagne! Back home at Boeing, answers to the dilemma of sudden crashes and faulty operation systems have taken precedence over celebratory festivities. Not a good time to debut Boeing's new 777x wide body aircraft!
From
RT, 3/11/2019: Boeing cancels 777X launch event after Ethiopian Airlines' MAX 8 crash
Not only are countries all over the world reassessing Boeing company's safety records, its stock has been negatively affected as investors parachute to financial safety. RT
reports it was the worst selloff in Boeing shares since 2001 following the 9/11 attacks and the current outlook is approaching dismal:
The latest crash of a Boeing 737 MAX 8 operated by Ethiopian Airlines has sent shares of the world's largest aerospace group plummeting 12 percent after the opening bell on Wall Street. The shares bounced back to trade at $390.18 at 14:20 GMT, still marking a significant drop of nearly 8 percent.
The latest stock plunge wiped out over $28 billion from Boeing's market value, sending the Dow Jones Industrial Average down 140 points during early trading in New York.
See also:
Ethiopian Airlines brand new Boeing 737 MAX crashes on way to Kenya with 157 people on board - UPDATEUPDATE: 13th March 2019 at 11:00RT
reports that so far 346 people have died in 2 deadly crashes in just 5 months 2018. Although the investigation has just begun, the incidents are worringly similar and there is speculation it could be due to a new design which was intended to compete with the new model from Airbus, or that it could be due to a lack of training following a software update:
US aviation agency gives nod to the 737 MAX as Boeing struggles to contain Ethiopia crash fallout
© REUTERS/Tiksa NegeriWreckage is seen at the site of the Ethiopian Airlines Flight ET 302 plane crash, near the town of Bishoftu, southeast of Addis Ababa,Ethiopia March 11, 2019.
There have been mounting concerns about whether Boeing's best-selling single-aisle airliner is safe to fly, after crashes in Indonesia last October and in Ethiopia last week that dealt a heavy blow to its reputation. In a statement on Monday, the FAA said that, while "external reports are drawing similarities" between the accidents, which killed 346 people in total, it's too early to judge if a common issue is to blame.
"This investigation has just begun and to date we have not been provided data to draw any conclusions or take any actions," the agency said.
The FAA gave Boeing until April to update its software and the maneuvering system, as well as training requirements and flight crew manuals, to reflect the changes. In a separate statement on Monday, Boeing gave an assurance it would unveil a flight control software upgrade in the "coming weeks."
While the FAA opted to proceed with caution, aviation authorities in China, Indonesia and Ethiopia, have rushed to ground their respective fleets of the US aircraft manufacturer's most popular plane, as a precaution.
Stock markets have also been reacting to Boeing's woes, its shares sliding more than 5 percent on Monday.
With no definite conclusions reached from last October's Lion Air crash yet, let alone last week's Ethiopian Airlines disaster, speculation has been rife, with some experts suggesting that a common technical fault had doomed both planes.
What do the incidents have in common?
Desmond Ross, aviation security expert, former pilot and CEO of DRA consultancy, told RT that, although a complete set of data is not available on either of the crashes, "they do look very similar."
There have been damning reports that the Ethiopian jet had experienced a violent nosedive shortly after departing from Addis Ababa airport this week, and that this incident was "possibly caused by similar issues to that of the ... Lion Air crash."
The brand-new jet is marketed as more fuel-efficient and technically superior to its direct competitor, the Airbus A320neo family. To beat the European jet, Boeing had installed larger engines that were moved a bit further forward, tilting the balance of the aircraft. To compensate for this, the company altered on-board software and the flight control system, Ross explained.
What makes the 737 MAX particularly (un)safe?
The MAX-series jet has not yet become the world's most dangerous plane to fly. Other models, like the de Havilland Comet, the first commercial plane, or Tupolev Tu-154, the working horse of Soviet civil aviation, had poorer safety records. But allegations quickly spread that the Lion Air crash last year could have been prevented had Boeing tackled the technical glitch.
Nevertheless, shortly after the incident Boeing released an update to pilots flying the 737 MAX airliner, warning of the issue. But it could be that some pilots "have not been properly briefed or properly trained," Ross speculated.
Boeing goes into damage control
[...]
In the letter to employees that circulated on social media shortly after the FAA announcement, Muilenburg argued that "speculating about the cause of the accident or discussing it without the necessary facts is not appropriate and could compromise the integrity of the investigation," while highlighting the company's vast output and its impressive track record of having delivered "more than 370 737 MAX airplanes to 47 customers."
[...]
RT further
reports on Boeing's plan for an update rollout, and hints at why the possible technical fault that caused the crash in Indonesia:
Boeing pledges to roll out software upgrade for 737 MAX in 'coming weeks' after FAA push
[...]
The US-based aerospace company has said that it had been developing "the flight control software enhancement" for several months since an identical Boeing model had plunged into the Java Sea off the cost of Indonesia in October, killing 189 passengers and crew.
[...]
While reaffirming 737 MAX's airworthiness, the FAA demanded Boeing make mandatory improvements to its flight control software, which is alleged to have malfunctioned and become the ultimate cause of the Lion Air Flight 610 crash on October, 29. According to a preliminary report into that tragedy, pilots failed to tackle the automatic anti-stall system due to it receiving erroneous readings from a sensor that measures the angle between the wing and the oncoming air flow, which forced the plane into a nosedive.
It was reported back in November that Boeing was ready to unveil a software fix within six to eight weeks.
Airlive.net reports that Ethiopia is unable to read the black box and it will "probably" have to be sent to Boeing in the US:
[Link] Brazilian airline Gol grounds its Boeing 737 MAX 8 aircraft
"Brazilian airline Gol announced on Monday it was grounding its Boeing 737 MAX 8 aircraft following the Ethiopian Airlines crash involving the same model that left 157 people dead."Given security is the number one value at Gol... the company... is temporarily suspending its commercial operations with its 737 MAX 8 aircraft," said a Gol statement.Of Gol's 121 Boeing aircraft, with whom it has an exclusive agreement, seven are the 737 MAX 8 model."