Associated Press

Washington – The U.S. issued an emergency order Wednesday grounding all Boeing 737 Max 8 and Max 9 aircraft “effective immediately,” in the wake of the crash of an Ethiopian Airliner that killed 157 people, President Donald Trump said.

Many nations had already barred the Boeing 737 Max 8 from its airspace, but until Trump’s announcement, the Federal Aviation Administration had said that it didn’t have any data to show the jets are unsafe. Trump cited “new information” that had come to light in the ongoing investigation into incident. He did not elaborate.

“All of those planes are grounded, effective immediately,” Trump said during a scheduled briefing on border security.

The FAA issued a statement at 3 p.m. ordering the temporary grounding of the aircraft.

"The agency made this decision as a result of the data gathering process and new evidence collected at the site and analyzed today," according to a statement from the agency. "This evidence, together with newly refined satellite data available to FAA this morning, led to this decision."

The grounding will remain in effect pending further investigation, the agency said.

Local impact

At Detroit Metropolitan Airport, some flights were already canceled due to bad weather conditions out west. A spokeswoman for the airport declined to comment and instead referred all communication to the individual airlines.

American Airlines, Southwest Airlines and United Airlines were among those with Max 8 and Max 9 models in their fleet operating out of Detroit Metro.

American vowed to "make every effort to rebook customers as quickly as possible," after the grounding. American Airlines grounded 24 of its MAX 8 aircrafts saying on average, American operates 85 flights per day on the aircraft.

“American has flown more than 2.5 million passengers — during 46,400 operating hours encompassing nearly 18,000 flights — safely on our MAX 8 fleet since the first one was delivered Sept. 2017 and began commercial service later that November,” American Airlines said in a statement Wednesday.

Southwest Airlines said the company is complying with the grounding of the Boeing 737 MAX 8 and they have also removed their 34 MAX 8 aircraft from their schedule service. Southwest say they operate a fleet of more than 750 Boeing 737s, and the 34 MAX 8 aircraft account for less than five percent of their daily flights, they say.

Southwest says any customer booked on a cancelled MAX 8 flight can rebook on alternate flights without any additional fees or fare differences within 14 days of their original date of travel.

United Airlines said the affected aircraft account for 40 flights per day and "through a combination of spare aircraft and rebooking customers, we do not anticipate a significant operational impact as a result of this order."

Antroin Smiley of Greensboro, North Carolina, who was at Metro Airport's McNamara Terminal on his way to Texas, said he was relieved that Trump grounded the Max 8 and 9 aircraft.

"It's not the pilots, it's the planes," he said. "Ground them so they can be inspected. They need to check them for problems."

Once the airplanes are found to be safe, Smiley said it would be fine to put them back into service.

"It's like an auto recall," he said. "I'm not saying I wouldn't fly (Max 8s) again. If they get the issues fixed, I would."

Trump said any airplane currently in the air will go to its destination and then be grounded. He added all airlines and affected pilots had been notified.

Trump said the safety of the American people is of “paramount concern,” and added that the FAA would soon put out a statement on the action.

Trump said the decision to ground the aircraft “didn’t have to be made, but we thought it was the right decision.”

The president insisted that the announcement was coordinated with aviation officials in Canada, U.S. carriers and aircraft manufacturer Boeing.

“Boeing is an incredible company,” Trump said. “They are working very, very hard right now and hopefully they’ll quickly come up with an answer.”

In a statement, Boeing said it “continues to have full confidence in the safety of the 737 MAX.” The company added that it had decided “out of an abundance of caution and in order to reassure the flying public of the aircraft’s safety – to recommend to the FAA the temporary suspension of operations of the entire global fleet of 371 737 MAX aircraft.”

Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg said the company was “supporting this proactive step out of an abundance of caution.”

Detroit News Staff Writers Oralandar Brand-Williams and Sarah Rahal and Associated Press writers Zeke Miller, Deb Riechmann and Kevin Freking contributed to this report.

How other countries are handling the Boeing 737 Max 8/9: