As air safety regulators around the globe demand Boeing prove its 737 MAX 8 is safe, airlines warn the planes could be grounded for weeks
In a key step toward unearthing the cause of the Ethiopian Airlines crash, flight recorders from the shattered plane arrived Thursday in France for analysis, although the agency in charge of the review said it was unclear whether the data could be retrieved. The decision to send the recorders to France was seen as a rebuke to the United States, which held out longer than most other countries in grounding the jets.
The Max jets are likely to be idle for weeks while Boeing tries to assure regulators around the world that the planes are safe. How long the planes stay grounded depends largely on what investigators find on the cockpit voice and flight data recorders, said Peter Goelz, a former managing director for the National Transportation Safety Board.
Ethiopian investigators likely avoided sending the data to the U.S. because the FAA certified the airworthiness of the Max and has a relationship with manufacturer Boeing, said Goelz, who is now an aviation consultant. At the crash scene in Hejere, about 50 kilometres from Addis Ababa, growing numbers of family members arrived, some wailing or beating their chests as a bulldozer navigated piles of debris. Blue plastic sheeting covered the wreckage of the plane.
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