Canada grounded Boeing MAX-8s after chance encounter led to new data: docs
Global News
The data that the Canadian government relied on to ground Boeing MAX-8 jets in 2019 was the result of a chance encounter at a European aviation conference, documents suggest.
Canada’s decision to ground Boeing’s 737 MAX-8 jets in 2019 came as a result of a chance European encounter that led to new data about two deadly crashes, suggest documents obtained by Global News.
Canada was one of the last countries to ground the Boeing-MAX 8 after an Ethiopian Airlines disaster on March 10, 2019, killed 157 people, including 18 Canadians.
The tragedy followed a similar disaster involving the MAX-8 five months earlier off the coast of Indonesia, killing 189 people.
After days of frantic behind-the-scenes activity at Transport Canada, Ottawa eventually banned the American-made jets from Canadian skies on March 13. But newly-released documents obtained through access to information laws show the decision to ground the MAX-8s came just hours before the announcement, the result of what appeared to be a coincidental meeting that provided new data showing similarities between the two crashes.
Nearly 800 pages of internal government documents – including emails, briefings and memos – offer a window into the flurried 72 hours that led then-Transport Minister Marc Garneau to his decision.
Several considerations were being weighed by senior Transport Canada officials, the documents show, including the impact of grounding the MAX-8 on Canadian airlines, the position of airline unions, and a general lack of evidence linking the Indonesian and Ethiopian crashes.
In a March 12 email – less than 24 hours before Garneau banned the MAX-8 from Canadian airspace – a senior Transport Canada official said that after the Ethiopian disaster, “our world-class experts found no reason to ground the fleet.”
“Need facts to act and we have no facts,” Aaron J. McCrorie, then in charge of safety and security at Transport Canada, wrote.
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