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It won’t be possible to establish a definitive link until the investigation of the March 10 crash of Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 in Addis Ababa is complete. Information from the flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder is now in Paris for analysis.
When regulators take an entire type of plane out of service, it can have a huge economic impact on the maker of the aircraft and on airlines that that fly it.
Here’s a brief list of major airplane groundings over the past eight decades.
2013: Boeing 787 Dreamliner
After an investigation, a Boeing battery redesign allowed Dreamliners to return to service about three months later.
1979: McDonnell Douglas DC-10
An investigation into the crash of American Airlines Flight 191 in Chicago, which left 273 people dead, led to the grounding of all of all DC-10s. Investigators were concerned about the entire fleet of DC-10s because Flight 191’s left engine had separated from a wing during takeoff.
Eventually investigators blamed the crash on maintenance that damaged the structure that holds the engine to the wing. The planes re-entered service 37 days after they were grounded.
1946: Lockheed L-049 Constellation
The crash of a TWA Constellation near Reading, Pennsylvania, which killed four people, followed several engine fire accidents in the same type of plane. Federal aviation regulators grounded all 58 L-049s that were in service at the time and ordered changes to their electrical systems and engines. The grounding lasted about six weeks before the planes returned to service.
1931: Fokker F-10A
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