Boeing 737 Max 8 Jets Are Grounded Everywhere
Paths of every Max 8 flight in one week
The United States was
the last major country
to ground the Max 8.
Reykjavik
Oslo
Helsinki
Warsaw
London
Vancouver
Montreal
Milan
Istanbul
Boston
Beijing
Seoul
New York
U.S.
San Francisco
CHINA
Los Angeles
New Dehli
China was the
first to ground
Max 8 flights.
Dubai
Miami
Shenzhen
Mexico City
Hawaii
Addis Ababa
Site of
Sunday’s crash
Bogotá
Singapore
Nairobi
Jakarta
Fiji and
Samoa
Bali
Lima
Brasilia
Johannesburg
Brisbane
Sydney
Buenos Aires
Note: Estimate of flight activity based on historical flight patterns from from Feb. 25 to March 3. | Source: Flightradar24 and aviation authorities.
All Boeing 737 Max 8 aircraft are believed to have been pulled from use worldwide after the model crashed twice in just five months, raising questions about its safety. The United States was the latest country to ground the planes, following Canadian aviation authorities earlier on Wednesday.
Concerns about the model first surfaced after a Lion Air flight crashed near Indonesia in October, killing all 189 people aboard. On Sunday, a second plane crashed outside Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, killing 157 people. It is unclear why the second plane crashed or whether the causes of the crashes are related.
See our latest coverage of the Ethiopian Airlines crash.
The European Union, China, Indonesia and more than a half dozen countries had already barred the planes from their airspace as the investigation into the Ethiopia crash continued. All 47 airlines that have the Max 8 in their fleets are believed to have stopped flying it.
Countries that have grounded Max 8 planes
AustraliaCanadaChinaIndonesiaIndiaOmanTurkeyUnited StatesE.U.
Not all countries are labeled.
Status of Max 8 flights by airline as of March 13
AIRLINE
STATUS
NUMBER OF 737 MAX 8S IN FLEET
Southwest Airlines
Grounded
34
American Airlines
Grounded
24
Air Canada
Grounded
24
China Southern Airlines
Grounded
22
Norwegian Air
Grounded
18
TUI Fly
Grounded
15
Air China
Grounded
15
SpiceJet
Grounded
13
WestJet
Grounded
13
Turkish Airlines
Grounded
11
FlyDubai
Grounded
11
Shanghai Airlines
Grounded
11
Hainan Airlines
Grounded
11
Xiamen Airlines
Grounded
10
Lion Air
Grounded
10
Smartwings
Grounded
7
GOL Airlines
Grounded
7
Shandong Airlines
Grounded
7
SilkAir
Grounded
6
Aeromexico
Grounded
6
Shenzhen Airlines
Grounded
6
Jet Airways
Previously grounded
5
LOT
Grounded
5
Oman Air
Grounded
5
Aerolineas Argentinas
Grounded
5
Sunwing Airlines
Grounded
4
China Eastern Airlines
Grounded
4
Ethiopian Airlines
Grounded
4
Icelandair
Grounded
3
Air Italy
Grounded
3
Lucky Air
Grounded
3
Enter Air
Grounded
2
Fiji Airways
Grounded
2
S7 Airlines
Grounded
2
Cayman Airways
Grounded
2
Fuzhou Airlines
Grounded
2
Kunming Airlines
Grounded
2
Okay Airways
Grounded
2
Eastar Jet
Grounded
2
Mauritania Airlines
Unknown
1
Corendon Airlines
Grounded
1
SCAT Airlines
Grounded
1
9 Air
Grounded
1
Royal Air Maroc
Grounded
1
Comair
Grounded
1
MIAT Mongolian Airlines
Grounded
1
Garuda Indonesia
Grounded
1
Note: Jet Airways has not flown Max 8 jets since the beginning of March due to financial distress. SCAT Airlines has suspended all Boeing 737 Max 8 operations to comply with regulations from Kazakhstan and the UAE’s Civil Aviation Safety Authority. Flight records show no recent flights on Max 8 jets on Mauritania Airlines.
The Federal Aviation Administration and Boeing originally stood by the plane’s safety, and Southwest and American Airlines continued to fly it in the United States after other airlines had grounded their fleets. The F.A.A. said on Wednesday that an analysis of new evidence collected at the site of the Ethiopian Airlines crash affected its decision.
The 737 class is a workhorse for airlines worldwide, and the single-aisle 737 Max has been Boeing’s best-selling plane ever. More than 340 of the Max 8 planes are registered, and many more are on order.
An estimated 8,600 flights use the plane in a typical week of travel, according to an analysis based on data from Flightradar24, a flight tracking service. But the model accounts for a small fraction of planes in the air at any given time, according to Ian Petchenik, a spokesman for Flightradar24.
The most popular routes are in North America and China.
Where Max 8 planes fly most often
CANADA
Calgary
Vancouver
Montreal
Boston
San
Francisco
UNITED
STATES
New York City (LGA)
Los
Angeles
Miami
Monterrey
Mexico
City
Santo
Domingo
Barbados
Trinidad and Tobago
Air Canada
Bogotá
American Airlines
Quito
Aeromexico
Lima
Urumqi
Beijing
Tianjin
CHINA
Nanjing
Shanghai
Nanning
Shenzhen
Air China
Shanghai Airlines
Shenzhen Airlines
Note: Only routes with 40 or more flights per week on a given airline are shown.
Investigators recovered both the flight data recorder and the cockpit voice recorder for the Ethiopian Airlines crash on Monday. Some circumstances of the crash, such as unusual altitude changes after takeoff, were similar to those in the Lion Air flight, but the cause is not known.
Five months later, the causes of that crash are still under investigation. But the tragedy revealed that Boeing and the F.A.A. determined that pilots did not need to be informed of changes to the Max 8’s flight control system, which may have contributed to the crash.
Amie Tsang contributed reporting from London. Additional work by Blacki Migliozzi and Scott Reinhard. | Sources: The airlines, Flightradar24, OpenFlights Airports Database, aviation authorities.
Correction: March 11, 2019
An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated the proportion of Boeing 737 Max 8 jets. They account for 5 to 10 percent of all 737 jets in the air at any given time, not 5 to 10 percent of all planes.