A day after Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 crashed and killed all 157 people on board, the African carrier decided to halt all its 737 Max 8 planes until further notice. China ordered its carriers to ground all 96 of their aircraft involving the model by 6 p.m. local time. Elsewhere, Indonesia’s air safety regulator said it’s discussing the possibility of grounding the Boeing planes and South Korea began a special inspection of the aircraft.
For Boeing, the latest disaster soon drew comparisons to a Lion Air crash in Indonesia that killed 189 people, pushing the Chicago-based planemaker a step closer to a crisis. A blanket grounding of the 737 Max, which generates almost one-third of the company’s operating profit, in China also raised the specter of other countries following suit.
“The B737 Max design is dangerously flawed,” said Mohan Ranganathan, a former commercial pilot and an aviation safety consultant based in the southern India city of Chennai. "There is a definite similarity between Lion Air and Ethiopian Airlines Max crashes."
Shares of Boeing dropped as much as 8.3 percent on the Tradegate exchange in Germany and as much as 8.7 percent in Stuttgart trading.
Chinese airlines accounted for about 20 percent of 737 Max deliveries worldwide through January, according to Boeing’s website, and further purchases of the Chicago-based planemaker’s aircraft are said to have been touted as a possible component of a trade deal with the U.S.
China Southern Airlines Co. has 16 of the aircraft, with another 34 on order, according to data through January on Boeing’s website. China Eastern Airlines Corp. has 13, while Air China Ltd. has 14, Boeing says. Other Chinese airlines that have bought the Max include Hainan Airlines Holdings Co. and Shandong Airlines Co., the data show.
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