US will not suspend Boeing 737 MAX planes; discussion on black box analysis

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/>