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Boeing immobilized its entire world fleet of 737 Max aircraft after new evidence was found at the scene of a crash involving Ethiopian Airlines.
The plane crashed a few minutes after taking off Sunday from the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa, killing 157 people on board. This was the second fatal accident involving a Boeing 737 Max 8 in five months.
It is unclear why this plane, bound for the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, has taken a nose or if the incident is related to the crash of Lion Air 737 Max 8 in Indonesia, which killed 189 people.
However, the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), which investigated the crash, said it was clear that the flight of Ethiopian Airlines had behaved "in the same way as the flight of Lion Air ".
Here's what we know about the Ethiopian Airlines crash so far.
1. The accident occurred shortly after take-off
The delayed flight ET302 took off from the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa at 08:38 local time (0538 GMT) and was due to travel to Nairobi, the Kenyan capital.
It crashed 30 miles southeast of the airport, about six minutes after its two-hour flight near the village of Tulu Fara, near the town of Bishoftu.
The flight was scheduled to leave at 08:15 local time.
2. The vertical speed of the aircraft appeared 'unstable'.
The cause of the disaster is not yet clear. But the pilot reported difficulties and asked to return to Addis Ababa, said Ethiopian Airlines.
Visibility was good, but the air traffic monitor Flightradar24 reported that the "vertical speed of the aircraft was unstable after take-off".
The pilot was named captain Yared Getachew, who, according to Ethiopian Airlines, has achieved a "commendable performance" with more than 8,000 flight hours.
After the crash of Lion Air in Indonesia last October in Indonesia, investigators said that pilots appeared to have trouble using an automated system designed to prevent the plane from landing, a new feature of the aircraft .
It is not yet known if the anti-stall system was at the origin of the Ethiopian Airlines crash. Aviation experts say that other technical problems or that human errors can not be ignored.
However, the FAA, which was investigating the crash alongside the Ethiopian National Transportation Safety Board, said new evidence collected on the site and satellite data showed that the two flights were "very similar".
"The evidence we found on the ground made it even more likely that the flight path was very close to that of Lion Air," said Dan Elwell, acting director of the FAA.
The black-boxed flight recorders – the flight data recorder and badpit voice recorder – of the aircraft were transported to Paris for badysis.
3. Questions were asked about a new automatic control system
Following the Lion Air disaster last year, Boeing provided pilots with instructions for managing the new 737-Max computer-controlled stability system.
The MCAS, which stands for Increasing Maneuvering Features, is designed to prevent the aircraft from stalling during tight turns under manual control.
A stall may occur when the flight angle of the aircraft becomes too steep. This can reduce the lift generated by the wings and eventually knock down the plane.
To recover from a stall, a pilot would normally push the plane down. In the 737 Max, MCAS automatically proceeds in this manner, bringing the aircraft back into a "normal" flying position.
The system continues to repeat the process if the computer detects that the plane is still tilted at an angle too high.
After the accident of Lion Air, it was revealed that the aircraft involved had problems with a sensor that was calculating the flight angle.
CNN reported that US-based 737 Max pilots had filed complaints about the performance of the MCAS in flight, including information about the system operating while the autopilot was running, which should not happen .
Boeing said that he "continued to have full confidence in the safety of the 737 Max".
However, he decided to stop the flights "as a precaution and to rebadure the air public about the safety of the aircraft".
A hotfix for the 737 Max on which Boeing has been working since the fatal crash in Indonesia will take several months, the FAA announced.
4. The Boeing 737 Max is brand new
The Boeing 737 Max aircraft fleet is the latest in the company's successful 737 range. The group includes the Max 7, 8, 9 and 10 models.
The Boeing 737 Max is the best-selling aircraft in Boeing's history, with more than 4,500 ordered by 100 different operators around the world.
By the end of January, Boeing had delivered 350 Max 8 models. They have been in commercial use since 2017.
The Max 8 that crashed on Sunday was one of 30 ordered as part of Ethiopian Airlines' expansion. He suffered a "First rigorous interview" on February 4, said the airline.
A small number of Boeing Max 9s are also in use. The Max 7 and 10 models, not yet delivered, must be deployed in the coming years.
5. A number of countries have landed the plane
The United States and Brazil were the last countries to suspend the Boeing 737 Max after countries like the United Kingdom, China, India and Australia had failed.
Canada immobilized its Boeing 737 Max aircraft after its Minister of Transport, Marc Garneau, declared that he had evidence of possible similarities between the aircraft flight models in Canada and the aircraft. Ethiopian Airlines that crashed.
6. Many airlines have Max 8 models
Of the 350 Max 8 models delivered, the largest fleets are owned by Southwest Airlines (USA), Air Canada, American Airlines and China Southern.
Southwest Airlines has removed its 34 Max 8 aircraft from scheduled service.
Although the airline has the largest fleet of Boeing 737 Max 8 aircraft in the world, it indicates that they represent "less than 5% of our daily flights".
He stated that he proposed "flexible booking policies", which means that any customer booked on a canceled Max 8 flight can make a new reservation on alternative flights "at no additional cost or fare difference within 14 days of from the date of the original trip ".
American Airlines said 24 of its aircraft would be affected by the suspension, while United Airlines said its Max aircraft would account for about 40 flights a day.
Both said that they would change the customers' reservations.
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