The past few days have seen a growing number of nations ground Boeing’s 737 Max aircraft, following this a catastrophic crash in Ethiopia last Sunday. Now, however, President Trump has announced that the US will join in keeping the 737 Max planes on the ground – reversing a previous decision to keep them flying.



The Boeing 737 Max’s anti-stalling system could be responsible for the crash



This string of event began this past Sunday, when a brand-new Boeing 737 Max 8 aircraft crashed in Ethiopia, which led to the death of all 157 passengers and crew.



Although undoubtedly tragic all on its own, this crash is the second Boeing 737 Max 8 to go down in less than six months, following a crash in the Java Sea last October which killed 189 people.



International concerns subsequently began to grow that these crashes might be due to some sort of system failure or flaw endemic to the Boeing 737 Max.



Specifically, the Boeing 737 Max has an automated anti-stalling system which it was speculated could have been the culprit. As such, 42 countries around the globe went on to preemptively ban flights by this jet model.



At first, the US decided to keep the planes flying, with the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) noting on Tuesday that it had found ”no systemic performance issues” with the model.



Some speculated that this was done an attempt to inspire confidence in the Boeing Company, one of the largest manufacturing companies in the US and the largest aerospace manufacturer in the world.



Most countries had already banned the aircraft model at this point



This was considered notable seeing as countries such as e.g. India, China, and all of the EU had already halted flights of the aircraft model. Furthermore, Boeing’s market value had, at this point, already lost over $25 billion since Sunday.



Nevertheless, on Wednesday, American aviation authorities revealed that they had acquired ”newly available satellite-tracking data” which indicated that there could be similarities between Sunday’s crash and the crash last October.



Furthermore, Boeing officially reported that it was recommending countries all over the world to ground the Boeing 737 Max 8 planes ”out of an abundance of caution.”



As such, President Trump announced an emergency order of prohibition, banning the Boeing 737 Max 8 and Boeing 737 Max 9 in the US. In conjunction with announcing the ban, Trump stated that ”the safety of the American people and all people is our [the US government’s] paramount concern.”



This comes after Trump criticized airplanes on Twitter for being “too complex”



Notably, this comes only days after President Trump went on a Twitter tirade regarding that ”airplanes are becoming far too complex to fly.” Moreover, the president tweeted that ”pilots are no longer needed [to fly the planes], but rather computer scientists.”



Furthermore, Trump suggested that ”always seeking to go one unnecessary step further, when old and simpler is far better” could lead to unwanted complexity in products. Then, Trump went on to argue that ”I don’t know about you, but I don’t want Albert Einstein to be my pilot.”



These comments instantly earned ridicule on the internet, but it nonetheless remains to be seen what the investigation into the Boeing 737 Max crash yields. The aircraft’s black box is set to be examined in Paris today.

Image Source: “Wikipedia”