By Trefor Moss, Wenxin Fan and Andy Pasztor
SHANGHAI--China's decision to order all of the country's
airlines to ground the Boeing 737 MAX 8 aircraft following Sunday's
deadly crash of an Ethiopian Airlines jet of the same family
represents a sharp break with traditional air-safety practice.
It is highly unusual for regulators in a major country to take
such a step before a similar move by regulators in the country that
certified the aircraft type. The decision, which was taken before
U.S. investigators reached the crash site--or even before Boeing
issued an update to operators about the crash--could put pressure
on the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration to address the matter
publicly.
In the past, Chinese authorities have taken their lead from the
FAA on safety matters and patterned many of their oversight and
enforcement procedures after American programs.
The Civil Aviation Administration of China, in ordering the
grounding, said the crash, in which 157 people died, was similar
enough to an October crash involving an Indonesian Lion Air jet to
merit the grounding to guarantee safety. It ordered domestic
airlines to cease operating the 737 MAX by 6 p.m. Monday local
time. Airlines were already grounding their jets early Monday,
causing disruption to some flight schedules.
Late Sunday in Washington, an FAA spokesman, who earlier said
the agency was monitoring developments and planned to assist the
probe, had no further comment.
Ethiopian Airlines said early Monday it has grounded its MAX
aircraft as well. "Although we don't yet know the cause of the
accident, we had to decide to ground the particular fleet as extra
safety precaution," the airline said on its website. The airline
had taken delivery of five 737 MAX planes as of January, according
to Boeing.
Cayman Airways, a small operator with two 737 MAX planes, said
on its website it would ground those planes starting Monday until
it gets more information.
Meanwhile, the head of Indonesia's accident investigation agency
said that authorities were meeting Monday to discuss whether to
recommend grounding the aircraft there.
Grounding even a relatively small number of 737 MAX aircraft
would throw a wrench into an airline's operations and could lead to
hundreds of canceled and delayed flights, irking travelers and
upending flight plans and crew schedules.
In China, 13 Chinese airlines currently operate 96 737 MAX jets,
according to the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration
Commission, which oversees China's big state-run carriers.
The 737 MAX 8 aside, Boeing has been on tenterhooks throughout
the year-old trade fight between China and the U.S. Both
governments have imposed punitive tariffs on each other's goods. So
far, Beijing hasn't moved against Boeing products, in a sign of the
U.S. plane maker's importance to Chinese airlines. That could
change, however, should current negotiations to resolve the trade
dispute falter and both sides return to leveling tit-for-tat
penalties.
Boeing Co. declined to comment on the grounding of the 737 MAX
in China. The company said a technical team would travel to the
site of the Ethiopian Airlines crash "to provide technical
assistance" to U.S. and Ethiopian investigators.
Regardless of how long the Chinese planes remain out of service
or what the cause of the Ethiopian crash ultimately turns out to
be, the timing poses potential problems for the FAA.
Without investigators first finding and downloading information
from the flight's "black box" recorders, FAA officials could be
hard pressed to explain specific technical reasons for determining
that the fleet isn't airworthy. Based on prior accident
investigations and decades of regulatory and legal precedent, the
FAA's practice has been to ground aircraft only when a clearly
unsafe condition is revealed and there isn't any other feasible way
to alleviate the hazard.
In the wake of the Lion Air crash, which killed 189 people, both
the FAA and Boeing are expected to announce a software fix to an
automatic flight-control system--suspected of misfiring in the
accident--within a few weeks. The changes initially were expected
in early January, but discussions between regulators and the plane
maker dragged on, partly over differences of opinion about
technical and engineering issues, according to one person familiar
with the details.
The FAA concluded the delay was acceptable because its experts
agreed with Boeing that there was no imminent safety threat,
according to this person. The FAA also determined that steps taken
after the Lion Air crash to inform pilots world-wide about the
system's operation were adequate to alleviate potential
hazards.
In November, as the FAA sent out emergency directives in the
aftermath of the Lion Air crash, the CAAC issued its own
instructions regarding the 737 MAX, ordering additional training
for pilots and engineers, according to the Chinese regulator's
website.
China's Xiamen Airlines spokeswoman Xu Shuang said the airline
previously told its pilots to be especially vigilant when flying
the 737 MAX in the wake of the Lion Air crash. She said 10 737 MAX
planes were grounded as soon as the aviation authority issued its
instruction Monday morning, resulting in some flight cancellations,
while others were going ahead with alternative aircraft.
Air China, China Eastern Airlines, China Southern Airlines and
Hainan Airlines are among those to have substituted older 737
variants for the MAX 8 on Monday flights, according to VariFlight,
a flight-information platform.
Boeing started delivering the 737 MAX to Chinese airlines in
late 2017. In December, it opened a "completion and delivery
center" south of Shanghai to paint and fit the interiors of 737 MAX
jets for Chinese customers, with a goal of delivering 100 aircraft
annually.
Andrew Tangel and Ben Otto contributed to this article.
Write to Trefor Moss at Trefor.Moss@wsj.com, Wenxin Fan at
Wenxin.Fan@wsj.com and Andy Pasztor at andy.pasztor@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
March 11, 2019 01:59 ET (05:59 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2019 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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