[Update] Trump Orders Boeing 737 Max Planes Grounded

An American Airlines Boeing 737 Max 8 above LaGuardia Airport.

Most of Boeing's fleet of 737 Max airplanes have been grounded, after the second fatal airplane crash involving one of the planes in many months. However, the Federal Aviation Administration kept the planes in the air, even "doubling down" on Tuesday afternoon by standing behind the aircraft, until President Donald Trump decided that the model should be grounded on Wednesday afternoon.

The plane has come under increasing scrutiny after an Ethiopian Airlines flight crashed on Sunday, killing 157 people on board, just minutes after it had taken off from the capital of Addis Ababa. Last October, a Lion Air flight crashed just minutes after departing Jakarta, killing its 189 people on board. Both aircrafts were the 737 Max 8, Boeing's bestselling plane typically used for shorter flights.

A flight tracking rendering showing the plane in use this morning underscored America's isolation on the issue:

While Senators, including Mitt Romney, Richard Blumenthal, and Elizabeth Warren, called for the planes' flights to be halted, acting FAA administrator Daniel Elwell said on Tuesday afternoon that based on their information "shows no systemic performance issues and provides no basis to order grounding the aircraft.”

Hours later, NY Governor Andrew Cuomo and Port Authority Executive Director Rick Cotton issued a statement saying, "We recognize that federal law places responsibility for air safety decisions on the federal government. But more than a dozen governments around the world have already grounded the 737 Max, and the FAA should urgently consider the basis on which those governments have acted --- and move decisively to assure that the public's safety is protected."

Boeing's CEO Dennis Muilenburg called President Donald Trump on Tuesday morning, to reassure him about the safety of the 737 Max; CNN reports, "Hours after the call... the Federal Aviation Administration said it remained confident in the planes, even as governments across Europe and Asia grounded them."

This is not the first Muilenberg has personally appealed to Trump: According to a NY Times report:

Boeing’s relationship with Mr. Trump has not always been smooth, however. Shortly after becoming president-elect, Mr. Trump assailed Boeing for the estimated cost of its program to build new Air Force One planes, which provide mobile command centers for the president.

The “costs are out of control, more than $4 billion. Cancel order!” Mr. Trump wrote on Twitter a month after winning the election, but before taking office. A couple of weeks later, Mr. Muilenburg visited Mr. Trump at his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Fla., to try to smooth things over.

“It was a terrific conversation,” Mr. Muilenburg told reporters after the meeting, explaining that he had given Mr. Trump “my personal commitment” that Boeing would build new Air Force One planes for less than the $4 billion estimate. Weeks after the conversation, Boeing donated $1 million to Mr. Trump’s inaugural committee. The company had donated the same amount to help finance President Barack Obama’s inauguration in 2013.

The investigation into the Ethiopian Airlines crash is at the early stages, but a preliminary report on the Lion Air crash noted that the plane had numerous previous issues with airspeed and altitude displays, as well as instrument failure. During the fatal flight, the pilot said there were flight control issues, according to the report.

Ethiopian Airlines CEO Tewolde Gebremariam told the Wall Street Journal that Sunday's pilot “reported back to air-traffic controllers that he was having flight-control problems."

After the Lion Air crash, the FAA required Boeing to put out a "flight manual update" of its systems. Now Boeing says it will update its software by the end of the April; Aviation Today explains, "That system seems to be the focus of Boeing's software update, which includes changes to the maneuvering characteristics augmentation system flight control law, pilot displays, operation manuals and crew training, according to the company. The enhanced flight control law incorporates [angle-of-attack ] AOA inputs, limits stabilizer trim commands in response to an erroneous AOA reading and provides a limit to the stabilizer command in order to retain elevator authority."

Update 2:35 p.m.: President Trump has announced that he's ordering the grounding of Boeing 737 Max 8 and Boeing 737 Max 9 airplanes in the U.S. until further notice: "All those planes are grounded effective immediately."

The Wall Street Journal also reported that the software fix to the Boeing 737 Max was delayed for months "as discussions between regulators and Boeing dragged on—and U.S. officials said the government shutdown halted work on the fix for five weeks."