By Uche Mbah
In response to the crashed Ethiopian Airline ET 302, China and Indonesia have grounded their domestic flights involving Boeing 737 Max 8 plying their Airspace. China and Indonesia are the two leading Asian Aviation markets for the Aircraft, with China Owning over a hundred Max 8 Aircraft, a situation that spells disaster for the American Boeing company and for China’s Civil aviation.
Ethiopian Airline flight ET302 had crashed over the weekend, killing all the Passengers on board, including two Nigerians. One was Professor Pius Adesanmi, popular columnist with both Premium Times online Medium and Sahara reporters. Adesanmi held dual citizenship-Canadian and Nigerian- and was an African and Post-colonial scholar at Carlton University. He was 47.
Besides Adesanmi, Ambassador Abiodun Bashua, formerly a Joint Special Representative for the African Union-United Nations Hybrid Operation in Darfur, Sudan, was also killed.
In giving the order for the grounding of the Airline, China Aviation Authorities cited the similarities in the way the Indonesian Airline crashed five months previously.
Last October, an Indonesian Airline Flight 610, a Boeing 737 Max 8 crashed into the sea. It was owned by Lion Air.
The Chinese Authorities said they grounded the aircraft because of the similarities with the Indonesian crash. Many other countries that has the Aircraft in their fleets also grounded it, but countries like the United Kingdom said they will continue to be in contact with the US Civil Aviation Authorities and Boeing to follow the situation.
Indonesia followed suit and suspended the aircraft.
Last year, Air peace had ordered for ten Aircraft from Boeing. The orders were for Boeing 737 max 8. If the Aircraft are delivered, it will bring it’s fleet to 37. Aviation experts say it may be too early to determine whether the contract with Boeing will be terminated, though Air Peace, which deal was backed by Fidelity Bank, has made no official statement to that effect.
Ethiopian Airline has only used the brand new aircraft for four months. They have grounded all the Max 8 Boeing in their fleet pending the result of the investigations.
There have been fears in aviation regulatory circles that there may have been an error in the flight sensors that makes it to malfunction soon after takeoff, but this has not been confirmed by the authorities.
Meanwhile, the Cockpit voice recorder and Digital Flight Data Recorder has been recovered, according to Airline authorities.
