China’s aviation regulator said on Monday it had ordered Chinese airlines to suspend their Boeing Co 737 MAX aircraft operations by 6 p.m. (5.00 a.m. ET) following a deadly crash of a 737 MAX 8 operated by Ethiopian Airlines. An Ethiopian Airlines 737 Max 8 bound for Nairobi crashed minutes after take-off on Sunday, killing all 157 people on board. It was the second crash of the 737 MAX, the latest version of Boeing’s workhorse narrowbody jet that first entered service in 2017. In October, a 737 MAX flown by Indonesian budget carrier Lion Air flying from Jakarta on a domestic flight crashed 13 minutes after take-off, killing all 189 passengers and crew on board. The Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) said it would notify airlines as to when they could resume flying the jets after contacting Boeing and the US FAA to ensure flight safety. “Given that two accidents both involved newly delivered Boeing 737-8 planes and happened during take-off phase, they have some degree of similarity,” the CAAC said, adding that the order was in line with its principle of zero-tolerance on safety hazards. Chinese airlines have 96 737 MAX jets in service, the state company regulator said on Weibo. A Boeing spokesman declined to comment. FlightRadar24 said there were no Boeing 737 Max 8 planes flying over China as of 0043 GMT on Monday. Most of Air China Ltd’s 737 MAX fleet of 15 jets landed on Sunday evening, with the exception of two that landed on Monday morning from international destinations, according to data on FlightRadar24. It did not list any upcoming scheduled flights for the planes, nor did China Southern, which also has its fleet on the ground. Cayman Airways has grounded both of its new 737 MAX 8 jets until more information was received, the Cayman Islands airline said. Fiji Airways said it had followed a comprehensive induction process for its new Boeing 737 MAX 8 aircraft and it had full confidence in the airworthiness of its fleet.<br/>
general
The latest version of Boeing’s best-selling 737 family - a global industry workhorse - has again been thrust into the spotlight after a fatal crash in Ethiopia, months after a deadly crash involving an identical brand-new jet in Indonesia. A Nairobi-bound Boeing 737 MAX 8 operated by Ethiopian Airlines crashed minutes after takeoff from Addis Adaba, killing all 157 on board. The same model flown by Lion Air crashed off the coast of Indonesia in October, killing all 189 on board. There are still unanswered questions about the causes of the Lion Air crash, and officials and safety experts said it was too soon to draw links with the Ethiopian incident. Boeing did not respond to questions about the 737 MAX 8 on Sunday but said it would send a technical team to the crash site to provide assistance. Boeing’s 737 MAX is the newest version of a jet that has been a fixture of passenger travel for decades and the cash cow of the world’s largest aircraft maker, competing against Airbus SE’s A320neo family of single-aisle jetliners. The decades-old 737 family is considered one of the industry’s most reliable aircraft. Boeing rolled out the fuel-efficient MAX 8 in 2017 as an update to the already redesigned 50-year-old 737, and had delivered 350 MAX jets out of the total order tally of 5,011 aircraft by the end of January. Former NTSB Chairman Mark Rosenker said the catastrophic crashes of two new airplanes soon after the 737 MAX 8 was introduced were “highly unusual” and both had broad similarities in that they went down soon after takeoff. While it is unclear if there is a direct link, “this is now an extraordinary issue” for aviation safety officials to grapple with and will prompt a sweeping investigation to determine if there are common issues, Rosenker said. Southwest is the biggest operator of the MAX 8, with 31 aircraft, followed by American Airlines and Air Canada, with 24 each. Southwest and American said on Sunday they remained fully confident in the aircraft and were closely monitoring the investigation.<br/>
Once again, an almost brand new Boeing 737 Max 8 crashes not long after takeoff as it flies erratically and pilots ask to return to the airport. The crash Sunday morning of a jetliner in Ethiopia bears unmistakable similarities to the Oct. 29 tragedy off the coast of Indonesia involving the same model, prompting questions about whether a design issue that arose during the earlier accident could be to blame. The stakes for Boeing and one of its most popular models are enormous. But veteran crash investigators and the airline say there’s too little data to draw a direct tie between the two at this stage of the investigation. US pilot unions, who were critical of Boeing after the Indonesia accident for withholding information on design changes in the 737 Max, were also cautious. “We would never speculate on the accident or anything at this point because it’s just too new,” said Jon Weaks, president of the Southwest Airlines Pilots Association. Flight ET302 took off from Addis Ababa about a little before 8:40 a.m. local time and went down about six minutes later, killing all 157 aboard, according to a statement from the company. The plane’s initial flight track was very unusual at a time when airliners typically climb steadily to get safely away from terrain and to reach altitudes where engines burn more efficiently. Instead, it twice descended briefly during the first two and a half minutes after liftoff, according to tracking data provided by FlightRadar24.com. The plane’s “vertical speed was unstable after take off,” the company said in a tweet. Because the plane was apparently out of range of FlightRadar24’s Addis Ababa ground station, the flight track doesn’t include the last few minutes of the flight, including its final dive. Story has further details.<br/>
Boeing said late Sunday it will postpone the planned ceremonial debut of its 777x widebody aircraft after Sunday's crash of an Ethiopian Airlines plane that left 157 dead. Boeing said after the crash of the Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 737 Max 8 is focused on "supporting" the airline and would not proceed with Wednesday's planned debut of the 777x in Seattle. "We will look for an opportunity to mark the new plane with the world in the near future," the company said.<br/>
Environmental activists recoil for a reason when the super-rich fly private jets to forums that preach carbon neutrality. Airplane pollution levels really are going through the stratosphere and nobody seems to have a viable plan to rein them in. While energy generation and agriculture currently dwarf aviation’s 1.3% share of all human-caused greenhouse gases, emissions from air travel are accelerating many times faster. That puts the industry on track to become the single biggest emitter of carbon dioxide within three decades if the predicted cuts in other sectors materialize, data and projections from UN agencies show. The ICAO recently moved to address the omission of airlines from the 2015 Paris climate accord by adopting self-policing guidelines that call for offsetting any carbon increases by planting trees or investing in cleaner technologies. Mandating direct cuts was deemed politically infeasible since it would have dented record demand for work and holiday travel, particularly in bustling Asian economies led by China and India. The problem with such a model, green campaigners and analysts such as Andrew Murphy at Transport & Environment say, is that it’s already been tried and didn’t work. At least three European carriers—Austrian Airlines AG, EasyJet Plc and Virgin Atlantic Airways Ltd.—have paid to have forests planted in poor countries far from their home markets only to see local authorities promptly cut them down. Story has more background.<br/>
Two of Europe's biggest airline groups would like to see more women taking up engineering and pilot roles, but cite a lack of female applicants that is making progress tough. "We are still finding that when we advertise for jobs… we are getting 70%, 80% male applicants," said IAG CE Willie Walsh during a panel discussion at the A4E Aviation Summit. "It should be 50:50. And I can't understand why it wouldn't be 50:50, other than we are just not yet convincing young women that aviation holds opportunities for them." Ryanair CE Michael O'Leary says his airline likewise finds that applicants for pilot roles tend to be overwhelmingly male. "We do recruitment days for pilot cadets – it's 90% male and 10% female," he says. "You do a recruitment day for cabin crew, it's the other way around: it's 80-20 female-male. We need to encourage more women to consider [airline] pilot as a career. At the same event, Boeing's senior vice-president of commercial sales and marketing Ihssane Mounir suggested that the airframer had found some success in improving the gender balance in engineering roles by educating girls about careers in aviation from a young age. "It had to be a deliberate plan to do it," Mounir says. "You had to go work at the lower levels, the high-school levels, before high-school levels, and get young ladies very interested in the engineering world and making sure that they feel comfortable doing it."<br/>