Singapore/Canberra: Singapore, Australia, Argentina and Malaysia on Tuesday suspended operations of all Boeing 737 Max aircraft in and out of their airports, joining other leading carriers who made similar moves following the crash of an Ethiopian Airlines plane of the same model that killed all 157 people on board. The US plane manufacturer’s latest model suffered a second fatal crash in less than five months on Sunday. Australia and Singapore are understood to be the first countries to ban planes from across Boeing’s Max fleet, the Guardian reported.
The Singapore suspension affected SilkAir, an arm of Singapore Airlines, that according to the country’s Civil Aviation Authority operates six Boeing 737 MAX aircraft. The suspension went into effect from 2 pm Singapore Airlines does not have any 737 MAX 8 planes. The move affected China Southern Airlines, Garuda Indonesia, Shandong Airlines and Thai Lion Air as these airlines fly into Singapore and have the 737 MAX in their fleets.
In an identical move, the Civil Aviation Authority of Vietnam said it would not licence Boeing 737 Max aircraft in the country, while South Korea suspended operations of the aircraft. Boeing said it would deploy a software upgrade across the fleet “in the coming weeks”. The company said that for several months it “been developing a flight control software enhancement for the 737 Max, designed to make an already safe aircraft even safer”.
It did not refer to Sunday’s crash in connection to the software upgrade but did express its condolences to the relatives of those killed in the disaster. The carriers that didn’t ground Boeing 737 Max 8 were Fiji Airways, American Airlines, Norwegian, Southwest Airlines and Icelandair. Meanwhile, China said on Tuesday that Boeing 737 MAX 8 planes will not be allowed to fly until their security is guaranteed, as it ruled out any politics behind its decision to ground nearly 100 such aircraft after the deadly Ethiopian Airlines crash.
US aviation experts on Tuesday joined a global investigation into the crash of an Ethiopian Airlines jetliner that killed 157 people, as a growing number of airlines grounded the new Boeing plane involved in the crash. The Federal Aviation Administration arrived at the crash site outside the capital, Addis Ababa, with representatives from the National Transportation Safety Board. They join an Ethiopian-led investigation. Apart from Singapore, Australia, Argentina, Malaysia, S Korea, UK, Brazil, Germany, Ireland, France, Icelandair also said on Tuesday it had suspended flights of its three Boeing 737 MAX 8 aircraft until further notice in Ethiopia. The list is going big.
