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CRASH: The Boeing 737 Max model has been involved in two major air accidents in less than five months

ALL BOEING 737 Max 8 and 9 aircraft have been grounded following the fatal Ethiopian Airlines crash, the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has announced.

In a statement released on Wednesday, the FAA said: “The FAA is ordering the temporary grounding of Boeing 737 Max aircraft operated by US airlines or in US territory. The agency made this decision as a result of the data gathering process and new evidence collected at the site.”

“Boeing continues to have full confidence in the safety of the 737 Max. However, after consultation with the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) the US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), and aviation authorities and its customers around the world, Boeing has determined – out of an abundance of temporary suspension of operations of the entire global fleet of 371 737 Max aircraft,” Boeing said in a statement.

The news comes after Boeing said that it did not have any basis to issue new guidance to operators and the FAA did not mandate the grounding of flights operating using the model earlier this week.

On Sunday, March 10, an Ethiopian Airlines flight heading for Nairobi, Kenya, crashed just six minutes after taking off from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

All 157 people – 149 passengers and eight crew members – on board the Boeing 737 Max flight died.

Several countries, including the UK, grounded flights operated using the aircraft in the wake of the crash. But Boeing and the US, which maintain the model is safe to fly, had not chosen to immediately follow suit.

The investigation into the crash, which is the second major incident involving a 737 Max model in less than five months, is ongoing.

In October, the same model was involved in a fatal crash after taking off from Soekarno-Hatta airport in Jakarta, Indonesia.

All one-hundred and eighty-four passengers and five crew members died.

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