Much of the world, including the EU, China and India — but not the US — has banned flights of the Boeing 737 Max 8 since one of the planes crashed on Sunday in Ethiopia, killing more than 150 people. Investigators are still waiting for information from Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302’s voice and data recorders, which were recovered from the crash site on Monday. The jets typically make more than 8,500 flights per week worldwide. Sunwing, a Canadian carrier, said on Tuesday that it was temporarily grounding its four Boeing 737 Max 8 aircraft even though Canada’s government, like that of the United States, has not ordered the move. The company said the step was “unrelated to safety.” Instead, the airline said, the move was prompted by growing airspace bans by countries and “evolving commercial reasons.” The EU on Tuesday joined the governments of the United Arab Emirates, Malaysia, Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, Singapore and other countries in suspending all Max 8 flights into or out of their airports. At least 34 airlines have now grounded the model, which means roughly two-thirds of the Max 8 planes in operation are now idled. The FAA in the United States has resisted pressure to ground the Max 8. While regulators in much of the world have ordered temporary groundings of the Boeing 737 Max 8 as a precautionary measure, the UN civil aviation agency said it would await definitive findings about what went wrong on Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302.<br/>
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The US aviation regulator said Tuesday it would not ground Boeing 737 MAX planes after a crash in Ethiopia that killed 157 people, bucking a trend of countries around the world that have suspended the aircraft’s operations. US and Ethiopian aviation safety officials discussed on Tuesday whether the flight data and cockpit voice recorders from Ethiopian Airlines flight 302, which crashed on Sunday on a flight to Nairobi, would go to Washington or London for download and analysis. US officials said the devices suffered some damage but they were confident of some initial results within 24 hours of the data being downloaded. US carriers are eager to see the results as a growing number of countries and carriers are grounding the planes. There were 371 of the 737 MAX family jets in operation before this week’s groundings and about two thirds of the fleet is now grounded, based on Reuters calculations. It is not clear if a final decision on where the recorders would go for analysis has been made. The FAA’s acting administrator, Dan Elwell, said its review had shown “no systemic performance issues and provides no basis to order grounding the aircraft”. US President Donald Trump spoke to Boeing Chief Executive Dennis Muilenburg and got assurances the aircraft was safe and did not need to be grounded, two people briefed on the call said.<br/>
The US Senate Commerce Committee plans to hold a hearing on the fatal crashes of two Boeing Co 737 MAX 8 jets since October as a growing number of lawmakers called on US regulators to ground the airplane. US Senators Mitt Romney and Elizabeth Warren on Tuesday called on the FAA to follow several other countries and temporarily ground Boeing’s 737 MAX 8, days after a crash in Ethiopia killed everyone onboard one of the planes. “Out of an abundance of caution for the flying public, the (FAA) should ground the 737 MAX 8 until we investigate the causes of recent crashes and ensure the plane’s airworthiness,” Romney said. The FAA said late on Tuesday that its ongoing review of the 737 MAX shows “no systemic performance issues and provides no basis to order grounding the aircraft.” Senator Roger Wicker, a Republican who chairs the Commerce Committee, said on Tuesday he plans to hold a hearing, along with Senator Ted Cruz, a Republican who chairs a subcommittee on aviation and space. Cruz said it would be prudent “to temporarily ground 737 Max aircraft” until the FAA “confirms the safety of these aircraft and their passengers.” Cruz added he intends “to hold a hearing to investigate these crashes, determine their contributing factors, and ensure that the United States aviation industry remains the safest in the world.”<br/>
Canada has no plans to ground Boeing Co 737 MAX 8 aircraft but is ready to “act immediately” to suspend flights if new information emerges indicating there is a problem, Transport Minister Marc Garneau said Tuesday. His comments come as a growing number of nations suspended operations of the plane after a crash in Ethiopia that killed 157 people, just five months after a deadly crash in Indonesia involving the same model. Garneau said Canada had not received any new information concerning the Ethiopian crash that would prompt it to ground Boeing 737 MAX 8 planes but that all options were on the table. “If we received information or explanations that indicate that there’s a problem ... certainly we’ll act immediately,” he said. “I asked my team to evaluate all available options, which includes possibly temporarily grounding some planes - the MAX 8 planes - so we’re ready to do so, if we decide to do so.” Garneau said later on Twitter he had cancelled all his meetings and public events for Tuesday so he could consult with a panel of civil aviation experts. Canada’s two main airlines - Air Canada and WestJet Airlines - operate a total of 37 737 MAX 8 planes.<br/>
The European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) decided March 12 to suspend all Boeing 737 MAX flight operations in Europe until further notice. EASA said in a statement issued an Airworthiness Directive mandating the suspension “as a precautionary measure” and “following the tragic accident of Ethiopian Airlines flight ET302.” The agency also issued a safety directive suspending all 737 MAX operations by non-European airlines into and out of the region. Both decisions became effective at 19:00 UTC on March 12. The agency said it is “continuously analyzing the data as it becomes available. The accident investigation is currently ongoing, and it is too early to draw any conclusions as to the cause of the accident.” EASA was referring to the March 10 crash of Ethiopian Airlines flight 302. <br/>
India is grounding US planemaker Boeing’s 737 MAX aircraft immediately, the ministry of civil aviation said late Tuesday, following the fatal crash of a plane of the same type in Ethiopia Sunday. "These planes will be grounded till appropriate modifications and safety measures are undertaken to ensure their safe operations," the ministry said. Jet Airways and SpiceJet, two top Indian airlines, operate Boeing 737 MAX 8 aircraft. SpiceJet suspended Boeing 737 Max operations after the regulator’s decision to ground the aircraft, SpiceJet’s spokesman said on Wednesday. “We will be working with the regulator and the manufacturer to attain normalcy in our operations,” he added.<br/>
Australia’s Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) has temporarily banned Boeing 737 Max aircraft from operating to and from Australia. CASA CE and director of aviation safety Shane Carmody says the suspension is in the best interest of safety following the 29 October 2018 crash of Lion Air flight JT610, and the 10 March accident involving Ethiopian Airlines flight ET302 – both of which were operated by 737 Max 8s. “This is a temporary suspension while we wait for more information to review the safety risks of continued operations of the Boeing 737 MAX to and from Australia,” says Carmody.<br/>
Italy will close its airspace to Boeing 737 Max 8 airliners from Tuesday night after one of the planes crashed in Ethiopia. Italy’s decision follows a rash of similar rulings from countries including Britain, Germany, France, Ireland, Austria, Singapore, Australia, Malaysia, Oman, China and Indonesia. The Italian authority said its decision, to take effect at 2000 GMT on Tuesday, was a precautionary measure given the uncertainty over the cause of Sunday’s crash. <br/>
Why do airlines love the Boeing 737 Max? In a word: money. This is a plane that promised to cut fuel and maintenance bills, fly further and cram in more passengers – manna to airline executives and shareholders. More than 5,000 of the new Max planes have been ordered, mostly the Max 8 iteration, allowing Boeing to maintain the 737’s historic chart-topping sales in the face of competition from the Airbus A320 family’s latest “neo” planes. While both manufacturers have launched more daring ventures with greater fanfare and mixed fortunes – Boeing’s 787 Dreamliner and the A380 superjumbo from Airbus – the Max was something else: a plane that didn’t rip up the model, but more or less matched the familiar, shorthaul workhorse. It replicated what airlines had already got, only better, lighter, and cheaper to fuel and maintain. Buyers queued from every continent. In the UK, even the doomed Monarch ordered dozens, though the airline couldn’t quite hang on long enough to reap the forecasted annual savings of up to E3m a plane. At a relatively affordable price, the Max – a single-aisle plane – had a flying range that opened up the possibility of using it on long-haul corridors traditionally the preserve of wide-body jetliners – an opportunity taken by Norwegian to fly new routes across the Atlantic. Story has more.<br/>
European safety regulators are proposing regulatory changes which would require operators of aircraft with Class D cargo or baggage compartments to convert them to a higher fire-resistant standard. Close to 500 large aircraft registered in EASA member states are fitted with Class D compartments, the European Union Aviation Safety Agency estimates. EASA had previously examined the issue in 2013 but decided that the overall cost-benefit of mandatory conversion – to either Class C or Class E – was too low to warrant a regulatory change. But the increasing fire risk posed by thermal runaway of lithium batteries in baggage or cargo has spurred a rethink. Class D compartments are designed to contain a fire completely without endangering the aircraft, and rely on oxygen starvation and resistance of liners to penetration. EASA estimates that some 470 aircraft with such compartments remain in service within Europe, including over 150 Airbus A320-family jets and more than 150 Boeing 737s.<br/>