The UK has banned all arrivals, departures and overflights involving the aircraft type that was lost in Sunday’s crash in Ethiopia, the Boeing 737 Max 8.

As investigators urgently seek to understand why the Ethiopian Airlines flight ET302 crashed, the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) has joined Australia, Singapore, China, Indonesia and Malaysia in banning the jet.

A spokesperson for the CAA said: “As we do not currently have sufficient information from the flight data recorder, we have, as a precautionary measure, issued instructions to stop any commercial passenger flights from any operator arriving, departing or overflying UK airspace.

“The UK Civil Aviation Authority’s safety directive will be in place until further notice.

“We remain in close contact with the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) and industry regulators globally.”

Plane crash kills 157 in Ethiopia Show all 15 1 /15 Plane crash kills 157 in Ethiopia Plane crash kills 157 in Ethiopia People stand near collected debris at the crash site AFP/Getty Plane crash kills 157 in Ethiopia A man carries a piece of debris on his head at the crash site AFP/Getty Plane crash kills 157 in Ethiopia Wreckage lies at the crash site of the Ethiopia Airlines Boeing 737 near Addis Ababa EPA Plane crash kills 157 in Ethiopia Debris at the site of the crash near Addis Ababa Reuters Plane crash kills 157 in Ethiopia CEO of Ethiopia Airlines, Tewolde Gebremariam inspects the crash site AP Plane crash kills 157 in Ethiopia Debris from the crashed aeroplane AP Plane crash kills 157 in Ethiopia UN staff observe a minutes silence for the victims of the plane crash. 19 UN workers were killed in the crash AFP/Getty Plane crash kills 157 in Ethiopia Rescuers work at the scene of the crash near Addis Ababa, Ethiopia AP Plane crash kills 157 in Ethiopia Rescuers work at the scene of the crash near Addis Ababa, Ethiopia AP Plane crash kills 157 in Ethiopia An Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 737 Max 8 (ET-AVM), the same type of aircraft that crashed EPA Plane crash kills 157 in Ethiopia Rescuers work at the scene of the crash near Addis Ababa, Ethiopia AP Plane crash kills 157 in Ethiopia Members of the search and rescue team work at the scene of the crash near Addis Ababa, Ethiopia Reuters Plane crash kills 157 in Ethiopia A boarding pass at the scene of the crash Reuters Plane crash kills 157 in Ethiopia Rescuers remove body bags from the scene of the crash near Addis Ababa AP Plane crash kills 157 in Ethiopia Wreckage at the scene of the Ethiopia Airlines flight AP

All 157 passengers and crew aboard the Boeing 737 Max 8 were killed when it crashed shortly after take-off from Addis Ababa, on a routine flight to Nairobi.

TUI Airways has five of the aircraft based in the UK, mainly in Manchester, and uses them on a wide range of longer European and north African links – recent destinations including Funchal in Madeira, Paphos in Cyprus, and Agadir and Marrakech in Morocco.

The other leading operator of the aircraft type from the UK is Norwegian, which has 18 of the variant and another on order. Research by The Independent on flights over the past week show that Gatwick-Helsinki is the most frequent UK service using the jet, but London and Edinburgh to Oslo and Edinburgh to New York (Stewart) are also popular.

The jet is also used for transatlantic services from Dublin.