Boeing Co. staggered into a deepening global crisis as governments around the world grounded the company’s best-selling jet over safety concerns after a second deadly crash.
The European Union Aviation Safety Agency and Indian regulators suspended all flights by the 737 Max on Tuesday as investigators probe why an Ethiopian Airlines aircraft plunged to the ground near Addis Ababa, killing 157. The March 10 crash occurred less than five months after a Lion Air 737 Max 8 plunged into the Java Sea off the coast of Indonesia.
The global rush to halt flights is leaving Boeing and the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration isolated a day after they expressed confidence in the jetliner’s airworthiness. Jurisdictions including China, Australia and Singapore had already grounded the Max, as had airlines from Latin America to Africa and the Middle East. But the spread of the ban to Europe deals another big blow to Boeing as it grapples with the aftermath of the African tragedy.
“I’m watching this unfold with an element of astonishment and bemusement,” said Sandy Morris, an analyst at Jefferies in London. “What we’re looking at here is almost a rebellion against the FAA. You’re now looking at American and Southwest and asking, can you really still operate this aircraft?”
Boeing fell 6 percent to $375.92 at 2:09 p.m. in New York. The company has lost about $27 billion in market value this week.
Back-to-Back Crashes
In the U.S., Southwest Airlines Co. and American Airlines Group Inc. are still flying the 737 Max 8, the model that crashed March 10 in Ethiopia just minutes after takeoff. United Continental Holdings Inc. flies the Max 9.
While Air Canada said it remains confident in the safety of its 737 Max planes and is still flying them, the carrier canceled two flights to London because of the ban in Europe. Canadian Transport Minister Marc Garneau said the country was “considering all potential actions” in regard to the plane but wouldn’t “make any premature decisions.”
Investigators are working to retrieve information from the Ethiopian Airlines jet’s black-box flight recorders, which have been recovered. So far, the FAA said, there isn’t evidence to link the loss of that aircraft to the Lion Air crash, in which 189 people died.
In the Indonesian accident, anti-stall software baffled pilots by pitching the plane’s nose down dozens of times before it crashed. The system was activated by a reading from a single faulty sensor, without any pilot input, and didn’t respond as the flight crew desperately tried to halt the dive.