Late on Tuesday India followed a host of other nations to ground Boeing 737 MAX8 two of which had crashed in recent months. The latest crash on Sunday was of an Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 737 MAX8, which went down with its nose down into the fields six minutes after it had taken off from Addis Ababa for Nairobi.
All 157 people on board died. The pilot was experienced and the plane was virtually new. Earlier in October, a Lion Air jet from Indonesia crashed deep into the Java Sea within twelve minutes of take-off, killing all 189 people on board. These are the latest medium-haul Boeings, billed to be the most fuel-efficient.
About 400 are in active service, some 4500 are on order. It is claimed that pilots need to go through an extensive re-training to handle these planes. While some countries had already raised concerns after the crash of the Lion Air jet, after Sunday’s crash a number of more countries lost no time in grounding them.
These include the UK, France, Argentina, China, Malaysia, South Korea, Germany, etc. Without passenger confidence, it would be futile for any airline to put them back in service. It is for Boeing, the world’s largest aircraft manufacturer, to investigate thoroughly the causes of the two crashes and rectify any flaws in order to reassure the flying public.
Fortunately, the Black Box which will reveal what happened in those crucial six minutes before the Ethiopian Airline flight crashed vertically into the fields, was recovered. Concerns of the flyers worldwide ought to be addressed before certifying the accident-prone Boeings a
