China has grounded all 737-8 MAX jets flown by the country’s airlines, ramping up pressure on Boeing Co. after the second crash of one its most widely flown models in less than six months.
Since the jets flow by Ethiopian Airlines and Lion Air both crashed during the “take-off phase,” the incidents have surface similarities that warrant further investigation before the planes can return to service, China’s Civil Aviation Authority said in a statement late Sunday evening, Washington time.
Beijing will work with the Federal Aviation Administration and Boeing to resolve any concerns, the agency said. A spokesman for the Chicago-based planemaker declined to comment beyond a statement earlier Sunday that a technical team would be sent to the crash site to assist the Ethiopia Accident Investigation Bureau and the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board.
The flight bound for Nairobi, the capital of Kenya, crashed shortly after its takeoff at 8:38 a.m. Sunday, local time, from the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa, killing all 157 people on board, including eight Americans.
“It is too early to speculate the cause of the accident, and further investigation will be carried out,” Tewolde GebreMariam, the CEO of Ethiopian Airlines, said in a news conference on Sunday. The flight was commanded by Yared Getachew, a senior captain with more than 8,000 flight hours, according to the carrier, and the aircraft itself had returned to Addis Ababa from Johannesburg, South Africa, earlier Sunday morning.
The Lion Air crash, which occurred in Indonesia in late October, occurred after an “input error” to a sensor designed to help keep the aircraft from ascending so rapidly that it stalled, forcing the plane downward too quickly for the pilot to compensate, authorities in the southeast Asian country said.
U.S. regulators required airlines last fall to update operations manuals on the handling of such issues. The FAA said Sunday that it had been in contact with the State Department and would work with the NTSB to help Ethiopian authorities investigating the crash. The NTSB said it would send a team of four people with expertise in systems and structures, power plants and operations to the east African country.
