Boeing 737 MAX jets could be grounded for weeks as black box probe to start on Ethiopia crash

WASHINGTON/PARIS/ADDIS ABABA, (Reuters) - Boeing Co’s 737 MAX 8 and 9 planes will be grounded for weeks if not longer until a software upgrade can be tested and installed, U.S. lawmakers said yesterday, as officials in France prepare to begin analysing the black boxes from a jet that crashed in Ethiopia.

Boeing said it had paused deliveries of its fastest-selling 737 MAX aircraft built at its factory near Seattle but continues to produce its single-aisle jets at full speed while dealing with the worldwide fleet’s grounding.

Investigators in France will be seeking clues into Sunday’s deadly Ethiopian Airlines crash after take-off from Addis Ababa killed 157 people from 35 nations in the second such calamity involving Boeing’s plane since October.

Possible links between the accidents have rocked the aviation industry, scared passengers, and left the world’s biggest planemaker scrambling to prove the safety of a money-spinning model intended to be the standard for decades.

U.S. Representative Rick Larsen said after a briefing with U.S. aviation officials the software upgrade would take a few weeks to complete, and installing it on all aircraft would take “at least through April.” He said additional training would also have to take place.

Boeing has said it would roll out the software improvement “across the 737 MAX fleet in the coming weeks.”

Relatives of the dead stormed out of a meeting with Ethiopian Airlines on Thursday, decrying a lack of transparency, while others made the painful trip to the crash scene.

“I can’t find you! Where are you?” said one Ethiopian woman, draped in traditional white mourning shawl, as she held a framed portrait of her brother in the charred and debris-strewn field.