U.S. joins in grounding of crash planes

The United States on Wednesday joined the rest of the world in grounding its Boeing 737 MAX 8 planes after two fatal crashes in less than six months.

President Trump announced the emergency action ahead of a briefing on border drug trafficking at the White House just hours after Canada revealed it would ban the planes from its airspace.

Canadian Transport Minister Marc Garneau issued the “safety notice” following a review of new satellite tracking data “suggesting a possible although unproven similarity” in the Ethiopian and Indonesia crashes involving the Boeing planes.

The U.K., Germany and Ireland on Tuesday also joined Asian and Middle Eastern governments in grounding and banning the MAX 8 jets from flying overhead.

Meanwhile, the decision had a “minimal” effect at New York and New Jersey airports, a Port Authority spokesman told the Daily News. Six American Airlines flights departing or inbound were canceled at LaGuardia Airport and two Southwest flights were canceled for departure from Newark. No flights were affected at JFK, the spokesman said.

Earlier this week, U.S.-based Boeing said it saw no reason to pull its popular aircraft despite growing backlash and criticism regarding the MAX 8’s safety.

The Federal Aviation Administration also expressed support for the Boeing model alongside several U.S. airlines, including Southwest and American Airlines, which is the largest airline in the world.

“Thus far, our review shows no systemic performance issues and provides no basis to order grounding the aircraft,” acting FAA Administrator Daniel Elwell said in a statement. “Nor have other civil aviation authorities provided data to us that would warrant action.”

A vice president for American — which boasts 24 MAX 8s — said they have “full confidence in the aircraft” just days after an Ethiopian Airlines jet traveling to Nairobi, Kenya, crashed six minutes after taking off from Addis Ababa.