Air crash disaster risks an even wider rift for Boeing and China

Determining why a Boeing passenger jet flown by China Eastern plummeted to the ground from 29,000 feet (8,840 meters) is a thorny task in itself. Now, politics risks complicating the investigation and amplifying the fallout. With relations between Washington and Beijing at their lowest ebb in years, the probe into China’s worst aviation disaster in more than a decade -- the crash of a US-made plane run by a Chinese, state-owned airline -- has turned the two archrivals into reluctant bedfellows. Both sides stand to lose if the investigation becomes politicized, ensnared in a wider fight for dominance between the two superpowers that’s touched everything from trade and the origins of the coronavirus to the war in Ukraine. A transparent inquiry into the March 21 crash would bolster China’s ambition to be a leader in global aviation as a regulator, and eventually a planemaker on par with Boeing and Airbus. “How they’re perceived around the globe is at stake,” said George Ferguson, a defense and aerospace analyst with Bloomberg Intelligence. A prolonged investigation would be damaging for Boeing, leaving the U.S. manufacturer sidelined in its largest overseas market, where it’s working to resume deliveries of the 737 Max jet after three-year halt. A shortage of narrow-body jets could crimp China’s airlines once Covid recedes, especially if Boeing were to reassign their Max delivery slots to other customers. Airlines around the world are watching the proceedings closely. That’s because the model involved in the fatal accident, Boeing’s 737-800, is one of the most widely flown aircraft on the planet. The Chicago-based planemaker delivered more than 5,100 of the type over two decades before wrapping up production of the passenger version in 2019. Story has more.<br/>