Australia and Singapore suspended operations of all Boeing 737 MAX aircraft in and out of Changi airport on Tuesday, and Indonesia and China grounded their fleets of the US planemaker' s latest model after it suffered a second fatal crash in less than five months.

The scare has wiped billions of dollars off the market value of the world's biggest planemaker, as the Boeing Co share closed 5 percent down on Monday having fallen by as much as 13.5 percent at one point.

The United States says will mandate that Boeing Co implement design changes by April that have been in the works for months for the 737 MAX 8 fleet.

An Ethiopian Airlines flight bound for Nairobi crashed minutes after take-off on Sunday, killing all 157 aboard and raising questions about the safety of the new variant of the industry workhorse, one of which also crashed in Indonesia in October, killing 189 people.

Boeing confirmed the Federal Aviation Administration's announcement late Monday that it will deploy a software upgrade across the 737 MAX 8 fleet "in the coming weeks" as pressure mounted. Two US senators called the fleet's immediate grounding and a rising number of airlines said they would voluntarily ground their fleets.