Aviation Roundtable and Safety Initiative (ART), a foremost aviation think-tank group in Nigeria has advised American aircraft manufacturer, Boeing; the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) to temporarily ban all 737 Max aircraft from commercial operations.

This followed the crash of an Ethiopian Airlines aircraft B737 Max NG on Sunday, the second within five month.

The same aircraft type operated by the Lions Air had crashed in Indonesia in November 2018.

The president of ART, Elder Gbenga Olowo in a statement said the series of fatal accidents “call to question the safety in the design of the Max 8 series by the manufacturer and its certification to fly by the US FAA – the safety regulation authority in the country of manufacturing”.

The ART noted that it was curious there had been no reported case of such fatal accidents of the aircraft in the US since the aircraft came into operations in 2016.

Olowo said, “While we condole with the families of those who lost their lives in the unfortunate accidents, we call on Boeing, the US FAA and ICAO to jointly consider these recurring fatal accidents on the B737 Max that have collectively claimed about 350 lives of air travellers within five months as a calamity to the global travelling community.

“These aviation regulatory bodies should therefore demand that the aircraft be temporarily grounded from commercial operations.

“We noted that some countries including China, Indonesia, Ethiopia, Mexico etc have grounded the B737 Max NG fleet pending the determination of the cause of the incessant crashes.

“ART is very hopeful that these global aviation bodies would respond promptly to the demand that the Boeing 737 Max 8 New Generation be suspended from commercial operations”.

•Sourced from a Daily Trust report

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