U.S. Grounds Boeing Planes, After Days of Pressure
After days of mounting pressure, the United States grounded Boeing's 737 Max aircraft on Wednesday, reversing an earlier decision in which American regulators said the planes could keep flying after a deadly crash in Ethiopia.
The decision, announced by President Trump, followed determinations by safety regulators in some 42 countries to ban flights by the jets, which are now grounded worldwide. Pilots, flight attendants, consumers and politicians from both major parties had been agitating for the planes to be grounded in the United States. Despite the clamor, the Federal Aviation Administration had been resolute, saying on Tuesday that it had seen "no systemic performance issues" that would prompt it to halt flights of the jet.
That changed Wednesday when, in relatively quick succession, Canadian and American aviation authorities said they were grounding the planes after newly available satellite-tracking data suggested similarities between Sunday's crash in Ethiopia and one involving a Boeing 737 Max 8 in Indonesia in October.
Previously: Second 737 MAX8 Airplane Crash Reinforces Speculation on Flying System Problems
Related: Boeing 737 MAX 8 Could Enable $69 Trans-Atlantic Flights
(Score: 4, Interesting) by isostatic on Thursday March 14 2019, @09:16AM (7 children)
Every country in the world grounded these planes before the U.S. Finally, after a few days, even Canada pulled the plug.
Two crashes with very similar circumstances in 6 months for a fleet that's only got 300 planes in the air? If that doesn't warrant a precautionary grounding while the black box is analyzed for the second crash, I don't know what is.
How deep is Boeing into the U.S. government?
(Score: 3, Funny) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Thursday March 14 2019, @10:48AM
Missile Silo Deep.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 3, Informative) by takyon on Thursday March 14 2019, @11:41AM (1 child)
SLS deep
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday March 14 2019, @01:35PM
Also Starliner.
People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Thursday March 14 2019, @02:14PM (3 children)
Just to spoil your conspiracism, I don't think it is possible for an outfit like Boeing and US government to set up such a conspiracy on a compatible timescale.
(Score: 2) by TheFool on Thursday March 14 2019, @03:25PM
I think it's about is likely that this was an Airbus conspiracy designed to damage Boeing stock. That's to say - not very likely, but who knows?
(Score: 2) by pipedwho on Thursday March 14 2019, @11:28PM
All it takes is a guy who has the ear of (or maybe a favour owed, or some dirt on) the other guy who is in charge. No need for a complex multi level conspiracy.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 15 2019, @01:19AM
It's not a conspiracy, but Boeing is pretty much the US' flag manufacturer for aircraft, and you wouldn't expect the government to cast doubt on their products, nor disrupt the operations of US companies using that hardware, unless it really wasn't politically acceptable anymore. Oh, and as someone above said, the US is "the country where profit is king and the populace is cheap". It is the mantra on which the US is run. But the government still fears a good lashing from the media.