Kenya bans Boeing 737 Max 8 from its airspace

By Fauxile Kibet

Kenya has banned Boeing 737 Max 8 from operating in its airspace, joining at least five other countries that have grounded the US manufactured aircract following Sunday’s crash of Ethiopia’s flight ET302 that killed all its 157 passengers.

In a statement, released Tuesday, Kenya’s Transport Ministry added that no foreign carrier would be allowed to operate the model. It, however, confirmed that no Kenyan operator has the model, which has already been grounded by the United Kingdom,  China, Australia, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Oman and Malaysia.

“We wish to state that no Kenya air operator has in their fleet the affected aircraft type,” the country’s Transport Cabinet Secretary Mr James Macharia said.

In the statement, the Cabinet Secretary also added that Ethiopian Airlines had committed to support relatives of those who were killed in Sunday’s crash to travel to Addis Ababa – in line with rules set out by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO).

The move to ground the fleet of the best selling aircraft over safety concerns saw Boeing’s shares tumble, causing billions in llosses

The Sunday crash comes after another similar aircraft crashed in Jakarta Indonesia last year in October killing all 189 people on board.

Both accidents occurred a few minutes after the aircrafts took off.

Despite international pressure to suspend operations of the Max 8 model, US federal authorities Tuesday said the aircrafts were airspace worthy noting there was no sufficient reasons to warrant grounding.

“Thus far, our review shows no systemic performance issues and provides no basis to order grounding the aircraft,” Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) chief Daniel Elwell said in a statement on Tuesday.