New York: With more countries grounding Boeing jets and with lawmakers, aviation workers and consumers calling on the United States to do the same, the head of the aerospace giant on Tuesday made a personal appeal to President Trump, New York Times reported.
Boeing’s chief executive, Dennis A Muilenburg, called from Chicago and expressed to Trump his confidence in the safety of the 737 Max 8 jets, according to two people briefed on the conversation. Two of the planes flown by overseas carriers have crashed in recent months in similar accidents.
The brief call had been in the works since Monday, but it came shortly after Trump raised concerns that the increasing use of technology in airplanes was compromising passenger safety. “Airplanes are becoming far too complex to fly,” he wrote on Twitter. “Pilots are no longer needed, but rather computer scientists from MIT.”
Ethiopia said on Wednesday it would send the black boxes from last weekend’s deadly Ethiopian Airlines crash to Europe for analysis as urgency mounted for answers amid safety concerns for the Boeing 737 MAX 8. The second deadly crash involving the plane type in less than six months prompted governments worldwide to ban the American aerospace giant’s bestselling jet from their airspace.
The move has heaped pressure on Boeing to provide proof the workhorse is safe. Ethiopian Airlines spokesman Asrat Begashaw told AFP the company would decide by Thursday which country would examine the cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder recovered from ill-fated Flight ET 302.
