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Lebanon closes airspace to Boeing 737 MAX: civil aviation
BEIRUT, March 13, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – Lebanon’s civil aviation authority
said on Wednesday it has banned Boeing 737 MAX passenger jets from the
country’s airspace after a deadly plane crash in Ethiopia at the weekend.
The authority also barred the aircraft from taking off and landing in
Lebanon, according to a statement carried by the official National News
Agency.
On Sunday, a new Ethiopian Airlines 737 MAX 8 went down minutes into a
flight from Addis Ababa to Nairobi, killing all 157 people on board.
This followed the October crash of a Lion Air jet of the same model in
Indonesia, claiming 189 lives.
Despite Boeing’s assurances that the 737 MAX is safe and reliable,
countries including Britain, China and India have grounded the model or
banned it from their airspace as they await the results of an investigation
into the latest crash.
The widening action against the aircraft has put pressure on Boeing —
the world’s biggest plane manufacturer — to prove it is safe, and the
company has said it is rolling out flight software updates by April that
could address issues with a faulty sensor.
There are about 350 MAX 8s currently in service around the world.
BSS/AFP/IJ/1655 hrs