You can continue to follow our live coverage on the Ethiopian Airlines crash here.
The flight recorders for Ethiopian Airlines flight 302 have arrived in Paris, where they will be analyzed for potential clues into Sunday’s plane crash.
A French Bureau of Enquiry and Analysis for Civil Aviation Safety spokesman said that the two black boxes would contain flight parameters as well as conversations in the cockpit.
He said there were less than a dozen laboratories around the world capable of reading the devices.
“When the black boxes have not (been damaged), the tapes or hard disks are intact, the data is easily recoverable. However, it also happens that entire passages of the recording are more or less damaged,” he said, adding that the analysis could take days.
Ethiopia had requested France’s assistance investigating the material as their country didn’t have the equipment necessary.
In the past 24 hours, international concern over the possible dangers of Boeing’s 737 Max 8 aircraft has only continued to grow.
US President Donald Trump announced Wednesday afternoon he would immediately ground all Boeing 737 Max 8 and 9 aircraft, amid concerns over their involvement in two major plane crashes less than six months apart.
Boeing issued a statement saying they would recommend the temporary global suspension of the entire 737 Max fleet. Fifty countries have now grounded or banned the planes inside their airspace.
It has only been four days since the Ethiopian Airlines crash which killed 157 people and sparked the growing backlash.
On Thursday morning, the plane’s black box is expected to arrive in Paris for analysis, potentially providing answers to victims’ families still mourning their loved ones.
You can catch up on our coverage by following the links below:
Boeing announced on Wednesday it would be recommending the grounding all Boeing 737 Max 8 planes globally “out of an abundance of caution.”
But the move hasn’t stopped countries taking matters into their own hands, with Mexico, Panama and Thailand all subsequently announcing they would be suspending Boeing 737 Max jets temporarily.
In total, 50 countries have now grounded or banned the controversial Max 8 models which were involved in the Ethiopian Airlines crash Sunday.
Following the announcement by US President Donald Trump that Boeing’s 737 Max planes would be grounded across the country, the aerospace company’s stock value plunged.
Shares of Boeing immediately fell 3% after Trump’s announcement. They later recovered to close slightly higher by the end of the day.
But since the Ethiopian Airlines crash on Sunday, Boeing’s stock has lost more than 10% of its value, wiping out more than $25 billion of the company’s market value.
The black boxes from Ethiopian Airlines flight 302 are due to arrive in Paris for analysis on Thursday morning, a vital clue into what caused the Sunday crash which killed 157 people.
The French Bureau of Enquiry and Analysis for Civil Aviation Safety (BEA) will conduct the investigation into the recorders but a spokesman for the bureau said they wouldn’t be announcing the results.
“Only the Ethiopian authorities will report on the progress of the investigation. There will be no press conference,” a BEA spokesman told CNN Wednesday.
Ethiopian Airlines CEO Tewolde GebreMariam told CNN’s Richard Quest on Tuesday that Ethiopia did not have the necessary equipment to perform analysis tasks on its own and would work alongside external analysts.
Mexico became the 50th country to take action against Boeing 737 Max 8 planes on Wednesday evening, following the United States decision earlier in the day to suspend the planes’ operation inside the country.
The General Directorate of Civil Aviation said they were banned until further notice to “guarantee the safety and confidence” of aircraft flying in Mexican airspace.
Since China’s decision to ground its Boeing Max jets on Monday, more and more countries around the world have banned the use of Boeing 737 Max planes inside their airspace.
South Korea’s largest airline, Korean Air, announced Thursday it would be putting on hold plans to introduce Boeing 737 Max 8s into their fleet.
“Korean Air had originally scheduled to introduce the Boeing 737 Max 8 aircrafts to its (air) routes from May,” the statement said. Instead, the airline will use other planes in their place.
It is just another reminder of the economic cost of the worldwide ban to Boeing.
Wall Street firms Melius Research and Jefferies estimate a three-month grounding could cost the US aerospace company up to $5 billion.
China was the first country in the world to ground their fleet of Boeing 737 Max 8 planes on Monday, which set off a chain reaction around the world.
In an editorial Wednesday, state-run tabloid Global Times told Boeing it had to take “responsibility” for the crisis and reprimanded the US government for “protecting” them.
“Such protection of a company seems incredible to Chinese, yet in US society it seems to make sense thanks to the US political system,” the editorial said.
It’s a bold statement which might strike some observers as ironic given the Chinese government’s unequivocal statements in recent months supporting tech giant Huawei during its legal troubles with the US.
The article also praised Boeing as a “giant in the aerospace industry” but added it had to be “modest and cautious as any startup company” given the recent news.
Another country has joined the international pushback against Boeing and its 737 Max 8 aircraft, within hours of the US announcement.
The Civil Aviation Authority of Thailand announced all operations of Max 8 and Max 9 planes would be temporarily suspended until midnight on March 20.
“Currently, there is no clear indication for the actual cause of accidents in Indonesia & Ethiopia, and no evident risk management measures or any mechanism to ensure the safety of 737 Max 9 aircraft from the aircraft manufacturer,” the statement said.
More than 40 countries have now suspended operations of the planes following the crash of Ethiopian Airlines flight 302.
Dave Wasserman took this video of a United Airlines employee announcing to passengers the airline’s plan to ground its 737 Max 9 aircraft at George Bush Intercontinental Airport today.
Watch the moment:
Passenger Mort Greenberg was waiting at the gate in Miami on American Airlines Flight 2809 when the news broke that President Trump was grounding all Boeing Max 8 planes.
He was scheduled to fly on a Max 8 plane. His flight, however, has been canceled, according to American Airlines’ website.
“Airport staff were upfront and said that was reason. Moments later news came out about Presidents order. Entire terminal just cleared out. But in 5 minutes or so AA had send me a notice of rebooking without even having to ask,” Greenberg told CNN on Twitter.
Greenberg, who works in advertising sales, was supposed to be flying into LaGuardia Airport in New York City.
Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg and President Donald Trump spoke before the grounding announcement this afternoon, Boeing tells CNN.
Afterwards, Trump told reporters the move was more precautionary than mandatory.
“I didn’t want to take any chances. We didn’t have to make this decision today,” he said. “We could have delayed it. We maybe didn’t have to make it at all. But I felt it was important both psychologically and in a lot of other ways.”
Trump said his decision was fact-based, even as he admitted it was made partly with regard for the mental well-being of American travelers. “The safety of the American people, of all people, is our paramount concern,” Trump said.
The Air Line Pilots Association, Int’l (ALPA) said it supported the Federal Aviation Administration’s decision to order a temporary grounding of all Boeing 737 Max aircraft that are operated by US airlines or over US skies.
Meanwhile, the union said it would monitor the situation.
“We strongly encourage the investigative authorities responsible to expedite the investigation of Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 and identify any corrective action if necessary in order to return this aircraft to service,” the union said in a statement.
A flight attendant union said the decision to ground Boing 737 Max planes is “good news.”
Sara Nelson, the president of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, urged everyone to “focus on the needed fix, rather than the uncertainty of flight.”
Nelson continued: “We must be leaders in safety, always. We thank all who spoke up. Aviation workers will always stand up for safety. We have that ability and right through our union. It’s important to recognize the critical role unions play in raising issues, demanding the best of ourselves, of management, and government.”
The company that provided the satellite data that informed the FAA’s decision to ground Boeing’s Max 737 planes did so on Monday, according to Jessie Hillenbrand, director of Public Relations at Aireon.
Transport Canada received it Tuesday evening.
Hillenbrand said Aireon provided the data, which shows Ethiopian plane’s flight position data, to authorities who requested it. The company does not analyze the information, she said, they just provide it.
Hillenbrand said they don’t have any information about the crash itself. But the data sent shows the flight’s path as captured by satellites as it travels. She said the “aircraft transmits its position twice a second, our satellites catch it. We have caught that data in real time and provided that to authorities.”
American Airlines said it will comply with the order to ground its fleet of 24 Boeing 737 Max planes and it plans to rebook passengers.
“American Airlines has 24 aircraft affected by this directive,” the airline said.
Read the airline’s statement below:
Southwest Airlines said in a statement it is “aware of media reports stating that the Boeing 737 MAX 8 fleet will be grounded in the United States.”
Southwest has the biggest fleet of the airplane with 34 in operation.
Speaking with reporters on a conference call, acting FAA Administrator Daniel Elwell said the grounding of the 737 Max 8 and 9 will remain in effect pending new information including from the flight data recorder and voice recorder.
“Since this accident occurred we were resolute that we would not take action until we had data,” Elwell said.
Elwell said the new data was “added fidelity – missing pieces that we did not have prior to today.” It aligned the Ethiopian flight data to the Lion Air incident.
Elwell declined to guess how long the grounding would last but he said he hoped to keep it “as short as possible.”
“I can’t and I don’t want to hazard a guess as to how long. My hope is that the FAA, the carriers, the manufacturer, that all parties will work very hard to make this grounding as short as possible so that these airplanes can get back up into the sky,” he said.
Update 4:06 p.m. ET: The FAA says the data “indicates some similarities” in its emergency order. See it:
The FAA tweeted that “new evidence collected at the site and analyzed today” impacted the agency’s decision to order a temporary grounding of all Boeing 737 Max aircraft that are operated by US airlines or over US skies.
In a second tweet the FAA said the order prohibiting the operation of Boeing’s 737-8 and 737-9 MAX airplanes was effective immediately.
Read the statement:
