Aviation attorney Mark Dombroff told Hill.TV on Thursday that he believes President Trump’s emergency order to ground Boeing’s 737 Max 8 and Max 9 passenger jets could have had “political overtones” and was influenced by other countries’ decisions to ground aircraft.
“I think one can make an argument without having any more information that was revealed yesterday regarding satellite photos, regarding inspection at the scene, that the decision that was made perhaps has some political overtones to it,” Dombroff told hosts Krystal Ball and Buck Sexton on “Rising.”
“Pressure from the international community, pressure from [Capitol Hill] and so forth, as opposed to actual air safety considerations,” he continued.
Trump’s move followed decisions by Canada, the European Union and other nations to ground the Boeing planes after an Ethiopian Airlines flight crashed on Sunday, killing all 157 people on board.
And last October, 189 people died when a 737 Max 8 operated by Lion Air crashed in Indonesia.
“The grounding will remain in effect pending further investigation, including examination of information from the aircraft’s flight data recorders and cockpit recorders,” the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said in a statement.
“The one thing that is getting lost here is that after the Lion Air accident, the FAA and Boeing both took action, and on November 7 of last year, the FAA issued a mandatory airworthiness directive that mandated a change of procedures for any operator flying the eight or nine Max aircraft,” Dombroff said.
“The FAA has taken action, and the question that one really has to ask themselves is what specific information other than the general reference to satellite photos, to inspection back at the scene again where the aircraft was pretty much disintegrated, really justified putting the airplane down,” he added.
— Julia Manchester
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