Several more countries have grounded the Boeing 737 MAX 8, joining much of the world, including the entire European Union, to take the action in the wake of the second deadly crash of the model — leaving the US as one of the few holdouts.
Among the countries to announce the bans are New Zealand, India, Hong Kong, Egypt and Lebanon.
Meanwhile, an Ethiopian Airlines spokesman said Wednesday that the black box from the doomed jetliner that crashed Sunday, killing all 157 people aboard, will be sent overseas for analysis, though no country has been chosen.
The airline has “a range of options” for the data and voice recorders, one of which was damaged in the crash, Asrat Begashaw said.
“What we can say is we don’t have the capability to probe it here in Ethiopia,” he said, adding that the remains of victims recovered so far were in freezers and that forensic DNA work for identifications had not yet begun.
Also on Wednesday, the grieving relatives of the victims of Flight 302 gathered at the site of the crash to pay tribute to their loved ones while carrying flowers and candles.
Feisal Hussein, who lost his father, Swalleh, in the tragedy, told CNN that visiting the site helped provide his family with closure — though he hoped his father’s remains will be recovered.
“What we feel as a family is that our kin, our beloved dad, deserves a befitting send-off, and we can’t do that if he’s lying somewhere in Addis,” he said.
“In the unfortunate and sad event that there are no such remains, then as a family we will just conduct burial and prayers in absentia and pray that God rests his soul in eternal peace.”
New Zealand’s Civil Aviation Authority said early Wednesday that the MAX 8 was not allowed to operate to or from the country.
“Currently this affects only one operator, Fiji Airways. There are no other airlines that fly this aircraft type to New Zealand,” the agency said in a statement.
The Indian Ministry of Aviation also shut the country’s airspace to all of the planes, following an earlier decision by the government to ground Indian airlines’ entire MAX 8 fleet on Tuesday.
Hong Kong announced it will ban the operation of all Boeing MAX models from 6 p.m. Wednesday local time.
“The temporary prohibition is solely a precautionary measure to ensure aviation safety and protect the public,” a city Civil Aviation Department rep said in a statement.
Egypt banned the MAX jets from its airspace as a “precautionary measure” because of a “lack of clarity” about what caused the Ethiopian Airlines crash, the Civil Aviation Authority said Wednesday.
National carrier EgyptAir doesn’t own any 737 MAX planes, but the jet will now not be allowed to land or take off in the country.
Despite the growing number of countries to ban the use of the MAX 8 and other models in the Boeing line, the US Federal Aviation Administration — long considered the world’s gold standard for aircraft safety — continues to back the jet’s airworthiness.
The FAA said it was reviewing all available data — and that so far it had found no basis to ground the planes.
Chicago-based Boeing has said it has no reason to pull the popular jet from the skies and does not intend to issue new recommendations about it to customers.
But Ethiopian Airlines CEO Tewolde Gebremariam apparently disagrees with the company’s assessment.
On Wednesday, he told the BBC that Boeing should ground all of its MAX 8 jets until it is established that they are safe to fly.
With Post wires
