China’s civil aviation authority orders all Chinese airlines to ground Boeing 737 Max 8 jets after the Ethiopian airline crash, Associated Press said.
An Ethiopian Airlines plane of the same model crashed on Sunday shortly after take-off killing everyone onboard. The Ethiopian Airlines incident on Sunday was second time in less than six months that a brand-new Boeing aircraft has crashed just minutes into a flight.
The Civil Aviation Administration of China said in a statement that all domestic Boeing 737 MAX 8 jets would be out of action for some time, due to its principle of "zero tolerance for safety hazards", the CNN reported.
They said they would contact Boeing and the US Federal Aviation Administration to confirm "flight safety" issues, before allowing the planes to fly again.
In October, a Lion Air Boeing 737 MAX 8 flight went down over the Java Sea, killing all 189 people on board.
"Given in both air crashes, the aircrafts were newly delivered Boeing 737 MAX 8, and both accidents occur during the take-off, they share certain similarities," the administration said in the statement.
At this point there is no evidence what caused the Ethiopian Airlines crash and no evidence of a direct link between the cause of the two incidents, the CNN said.
Ethiopian Airlines also said on Monday it had grounded its Boeing 737 MAX 8 fleet after a crash that killed 149 passengers and eight crew. In a statement the state-owned carrier said: "Following the tragic accident of ET 302... Ethiopian Airlines has decided to ground all B-737-8 MAX fleet effective yesterday, March 10, until further notice."
Four Indians were among the 157 people killed in the Ethiopian Airlines plane crash on Sunday.
The plane, Boeing 737 Max-8 en route to Nairobi, crashed shortly after taking off from the Ethiopian capital, killing all 149 passengers and 8 crew on board, according to media reports.
The crash happened at 8.44 a.m., six minutes after the Boeing 737 Max-8 took off.