WASHINGTON (AP) ? As country after country grounded Boeing?s 737 Max jets after a deadly crash Sunday in Ethiopia, U.S. air safety regulators remained resolute in their refusal to do so ? until Wednesday.
That?s when the Federal Aviation Administration issued an emergency order keeping the planes on the tarmac. The agency said what made the difference was new, enhanced satellite tracking data and physical evidence on the ground that linked the Ethiopian jet?s movements to those of an Indonesian Lion Air flight that plunged into the Java Sea in October and killed 189 people.
?That evidence aligns the Ethiopian flight closer to Lion Air, what we know happened to Lion Air,? said Daniel Elwell, acting FAA administrator.
Officials at Lion Air have said sensors on their plane produced erroneous information on its last four flights, triggering an automatic nose-down command that the pilots were unable to overcome on its final voyage.
The FAA was under intense pressure to ground the planes and resisted even after Canada on Wednesday joined more than 40 countries, including the European Union and China, in barring the Max from the air, leaving the U.S. almost alone.
The agency, which prides itself on making data-driven decisions, had maintained there was nothing to show the Boeing jets were unsafe, and flights continued.
But President Donald Trump, who announced the grounding, was briefed Wednesday on new developments by Elwell and Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao, and they determined the planes should be grounded, the White House said. Trump spoke afterward with Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenberg and Boeing signed on.
?At the end of the day, it is a decision that has the full support of the secretary, the president and the FAA as an agency,? Elwell said.
While early satellite tracking data showed similarities between the Ethiopian jet?s flight path and Lion Air, Elwell said the FAA was skeptical of the low-resolution images. The data showed movements that weren?t consistent with how airplanes fly, Elwell said.
ON WEDNESDAY, global air traffic surveillance company Aireon, Boeing and the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board were able to enhance the initial data and make it more precise ?to create a description of the flight that made it similar enough to Lion Air,? Elwell said.
He wouldn?t detail the evidence found on the ground, saying the FAA is a party to the ongoing investigation.
The U.S. also grounded a larger version of the plane, the Max 9.
The Ethiopian plane?s flight data and voice recorders were to be sent to France Wednesday night for analysis, Elwell said. Some aviation experts have warned that finding answers in that crash, which killed 157 people, could take months.
Airlines, mainly Southwest, American and United, should be able to swap out planes pretty quickly, and passengers shouldn?t be terribly inconvenienced, said Paul Hudson, president of flyersrights.org, which represents passengers. The Max, he said, makes up only a small percentage of the U.S. passenger jet fleet, he said.
