737 MAX CRASH

“WHAT PROMPTED THE FAA TO ACT?

The Federal Aviation Administration initially declined to ground the 737 Max, cautioning against comparing the Ethiopian Airlines crash with the October crash of a Lion Air 737 Max off of Indonesia or assuming that they are related.

Pressure on the FAA grew as more than 40 countries including the entire European Union and Canada suspended flights by the plane or barred it from their airspace.

On Wednesday, the agency ordered the grounding, saying that new information from the wreckage in Ethiopia, along with satellite-based tracking of the flight path, “indicates some similarities” between the Ethiopia and Indonesia crashes.

The agency said it was ordering the jets’ grounding while investigators determine whether there was a shared cause of the two crashes.”