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| Boeing 737 Max planes are being suspended from airspace in countries including Britain, France, Germany, Ireland and The Netherlands (AFP Photo/BEN STANSALL) |
Paris (AFP) - The EU closed its airspace to Boeing 737 MAX planes on Tuesday, joining similar action by nations across the globe following a second deadly accident in just five months.
Fleets of
the best-selling workhorse plane were also grounded by airlines as safety
concerns swirled, sending Boeing shares tumbling another seven percent in
Tuesday trading and wiping billions more off its market value.
On Sunday,
a new Ethiopian Airlines 737 MAX 8 went down minutes into a flight from Addis
Ababa to Nairobi, killing all 157 people on board.
In October,
a Lion Air jet of the same model crashed in Indonesia, killing 189 people
shortly after takeoff from Jakarta.
The
widening airspace closures puts pressure on Boeing, the world's biggest
planemaker, to prove the MAX planes are safe.
The full
extent of the impact on international travel routes was unclear, although there
are some 350 MAX 8 planes currently in service around the world with more than
5,000 on order.
The EU aviation safety agency said it was closing European airspace to all MAX aircraft currently operating.
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Factfile on
the Boeing 737 MAX 8 (AFP Photo)
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The EU aviation safety agency said it was closing European airspace to all MAX aircraft currently operating.
It noted
that the "exact causes" of the Lion Air crash were still being
investigated.
"Since
that action, another fatal accident occurred," EASA said, referring to
Sunday's Ethiopian Airlines disaster.
"At
this early stage of the investigation, it cannot be excluded that similar
causes may have contributed to both events," the agency said.
'Precautionary measure'
India late
Tuesday joined the list of countries to close its airspace to the jet, a day
after saying it had imposed additional interim safety requirements for ground
engineers and crew for the aircraft.
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The
Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 737 MAX 8 went down minutes into a flight
to Nairobi,
killing all 157 people on board (AFP Photo/Michael TEWELDE)
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Elsewhere,
Turkish Airlines, one of the largest carriers in the world, said it was
suspending its 12 MAX aircraft from Wednesday, until "uncertainty"
was clarified.
Low-cost
airline Norwegian Air Shuttle, South Korea's Eastar Jet and South Africa's
Comair also said they would halt flights.
On Twitter,
US President Donald Trump weighed in on the situation, writing: "Airplanes
are becoming far too complex to fly."
"Pilot
are no longer needed, but rather computer scientists from MIT," he wrote,
referring to the prestigious university in Massachusetts.
US carriers
have so far appeared to maintain confidence in Boeing, which has said it is
certain the planes are safe to fly.
The US
federal aviation authority, the FAA, has not grounded the MAX but ordered the
manufacturer to make design changes.
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US President
Donald Trump tweeted that modern planes are too complicated
for pilots (AFP
Photo/Jim WATSON)
|
The move
was not enough to reassure the UK Civil Aviation Authority, which said it was
banning the planes from UK airspace "as a precautionary measure".
Global air
travel hub Singapore, as well as Australia, Malaysia and Oman were among the
other countries to ban all MAX planes from their airspace.
China, a
hugely important market for Boeing, had already ordered domestic airlines to
suspend operations of the plane on Monday, as did Indonesia.
Argentina's
flag carrier also grounded five MAX 8 aircraft on Tuesday, as did airlines in
countries including Brazil and Mexico.
'Significant industry impact'
Boeing has
described the MAX series as its fastest-selling family of planes, with more
than 5,000 orders placed to date from about 100 customers.
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Debris of
the Boeing 737 MAX 8 plane strewn over a crash site outside Addis
Ababa (AFP
Photo/Michael TEWELDE)
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But not
since the 1970s -- when the McDonnell Douglas DC-10 suffered successive fatal
incidents -- has a new model been involved in two deadly accidents in such a
short period.
"I
think the impact for the industry is significant," said Gerry Soejatman, a
Jakarta-based aviation analyst.
"We
have a new type of aircraft -- that type of aircraft has only been in service
for two years -- and... we have two accidents with seemingly similar
circumstances."
The plane
involved in Sunday's crash was less than four months old, with Ethiopian
Airlines saying it was delivered on November 15.
It went
down near the village of Tulu Fara, some 40 miles (60 kilometres) east of Addis
Ababa.
Ethiopian
Airlines said the pilot was given clearance to turn around after indicating
problems shortly before the plane disappeared from radar.
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The doomed
Boeing 737 MAX airliner was carrying passengers and crew from
35 countries (AFP
Photo)
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Its chief
executive Tewolde GebreMariam said the plane had flown in from Johannesburg on
Sunday, spent three hours in Addis and was "dispatched with no
remark", meaning no problems were flagged.
Investigators
have recovered the black box flight recorders, which could potentially provide
information about what happened, depending on their condition.
The crash
cast a pall over a gathering of the UN Environment Programme in Nairobi -- at
least 22 staff from several UN agencies were on board the doomed flight.
Kenya had
the highest death toll among the nationalities on the flight with 32, according
to Ethiopian Airlines.
There were
also passengers from Canada, Ethiopia, Italy, the United States, Britain and
France.
#UPDATE The ban on the Boeing 737 MAX aircraft became worldwide after US President Donald Trump joined Canada and other countries in grounding the aircraft amid intense pressure about the safety concerns https://t.co/okBppoGk6W— AFP news agency (@AFP) 13 maart 2019
Black box data recovered from an Ethiopian Airlines plane that crashed last week shows "clear similarities" with a recent crash in Indonesia of the same type of aircraft, Ethiopia's transport minister said https://t.co/k38qc9WcB6 by @ChrisJStein pic.twitter.com/1Q7SuaGpA6— AFP news agency (@AFP) 17 maart 2019
