Canada, U.S. follow others and ground all Boeing 737 Max 8 and Max 9 planes
OTTAWA—Canada and the United States have issued emergency orders grounding all Boeing 737 Max 8 and Max 9 airplanes, joining a worldwide temporary ban on the popular commercial jets after two deadly crashes over the last six months.
U.S. President Donald Trump told reporters that “new information” had lead the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to ground the jets in the wake of Sunday’s crash of an Ethiopian Airlines’ 737 Max 8 that killed 157 people, including 18 Canadians.
“We’re going to be issuing an emergency order of prohibition to ground all flights of the 737 Max 8 and 737 Max 9 and the planes associated with that line,” Trump said at an afternoon news conference at the White House Wednesday.
“The safety of the American people and all people is our paramount concern.”
Trump’s announcement comes just hours after Transport Minister Marc Garneau announced Canada would not allow the Boeing jets in Canadian airspace.
Soon after that, Boeing issued a statement, recommending to the U.S. FAA that its global 737 Max fleet of 371 aircraft be grounded while it helps to investigate the cause of the accidents.
“We are supporting this proactive step out of an abundance of caution. Safety is a core value at Boeing for as long as we have been building airplanes; and it always will be. … We are doing everything we can to understand the cause of the accidents in partnership with the investigators, deploy safety enhancements and help ensure this does not happen again,” Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg, said in a statement on the company’s website.
Citing new satellite data received Tuesday night, Garneau said there appear to be similarities between Sunday’s crash outside Addis Ababa and the Lion Air 737 Max crash outside Jakarta last October.
“The new information, and I hasten to say this is new information that we received and analyzed this morning … suggesting a possible, although unproven, similarity of the Lion Air aircraft,” Garneau told reporters at a news conference in Ottawa.
Garneau stressed the new data was not a conclusive explanation of what happened to the Ethiopian Airlines plane. But he said it was sufficiently concerning that it “crossed the threshold” and convinced him to order the Boeing 737 Max — including the 41 jets used by Canadian airlines — out of Canadian airspace.
“As the investigations have just started, it is too soon to speculate about the exact cause of the accident in Addis Ababa, and to make direct links to the Lion Air accident in Indonesia in October of 2018,” Garneau said.
Canada and the United States were increasingly outliers after countries around the world grounded the Boeing jets over safety concerns.
Canada’s decision will inevitably lead to delays and diversions for air travellers flying to and from the country, Garneau said, as Air Canada, WestJet and Sunwing scramble to make alternative arrangements.
But Garneau said he received no pushback from Air Canada, which operates 24 of the 737 Max models, when he notified them Wednesday morning.
“They realize the importance of safety,” Garneau said.
Last December, the Liberals published regulations for how airlines must accommodate travellers who have their flights delayed or cancelled – the so called air passenger bill of rights.
Under the proposed regulations, airlines would have to ensure that travellers make it to their destination – even if the travel is disrupted by forces outside the airlines’ control.