Canada is now grounding all Boeing 737 Max 8 and 9 flights and barring them from entering the airspace.
The decision comes after the government learned new information about the two Max 8 planes that crashed in the past 5 months, killing everyone on board.
Back in October an Indonesian Lion Air Jet plunged into the ocean, killing 189.
On Sunday, an Ethiopian Airline Plane crashed, killing all 157 people on board.
New data revealed similarities in the profiles of the two planes. “There are similarities that sort of exceed a sort of threshold in our mind with respect to the possible cause of what happened in Ethiopia”
The Federal Minister of Transportation, Marc Garneau says the sensor on the Indonesian flight gave the impression the nose was too high on take off, forcing the nose down. The pilot continued to counter the automatic actions.
“Eventually, unfortunately the pilot lost that fight with this software. The airplane tends to oscillate in this conflict between the software and the pilot and that’s what had similarities on the Ethiopian flight.”
But Garneau says the data is inconclusive, “Yes it was a clear day. Yes it was an experienced pilot. Yes it happened within ten minutes but we don’t know why the Ethiopian aircraft behaved the way it did. We don’t even know what precisely happened and that’s what we want to get to the bottom of.”
Garneau says the government is hopeful the voice recording from the the Ethiopian airline plane will explain what led to Sunday’s crash.
Garneau also says passengers who have booked flights on the planes should check with their service providers to try and find a solution to the situation.
Air Canada, West Jet and Sunwing all have the Max 8 planes in their fleets. They will have to re-book all passengers affected by this decision.
Hours after Marc Garneau made his announcement, U.S. President Donald Trump followed suit.
President and CEO of the Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum, Dave Rohrer sat down to talk about today’s decision from Transportation Minister Garneau and President Donald Trump.
