President Trump says he is grounding all U.S. flights on Boeing 737 Max 8 and 9 planes 'effective immediately' in an emergency order of prohibition.
Any plane that is currently in the air will be allowed to land, and then the planes will be grounded until further notice, he said in a surprise announcement on Wednesday afternoon.
Trump said he made the decision following conversations with Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao, Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg and acting FAA administrator Dan Elwell after 'new information' and 'physical evidence' emerged on tragic incidents involving the Max 8 aircraft.
'They are all in agreement with the action,' Trump announced from the White House. 'Planes that are in the air will be grounded, if they're the 737 Max, will be grounded upon landing at the destination.'
An Ethiopian Airlines flight crashed Sunday, shortly after taking off from Addis Ababa. All 157 people on aircraft perished. A Lion Air flight on a 737 Max 8 crashed in October in Indonesia, taking the lives of its 189 passengers and crew, too.
Scroll down for videos
President Trump says he is grounding all flights on the Boeing Max 8 and Max 9 - 'effective immediately' - in an emergency order of prohibition
Any Max 7 or Max 8 plane that is currently in the air will be allowed to land, and then the planes will be grounded until further notice, Trump said in a surprise announcement
Airlines have been notified that the Boeing Max aircraft are being taken out of circulation temporarily, and they are in agreement with the decision, Trump claimed.
'Our hearts go out to all of those who lost loved ones, to their friends to their families in both the Ethiopian and Lion airlines crashes that involved the 737 Max aircraft,' the president said. 'It's a terrible terrible thing. Boeing is an incredible company. They are working very, very hard right now.'
Boeing will hopefully come up with an answer swiftly, he said. 'But until they do, the planes are grounded.'
The company suggested in a statement a half-hour after Trump's shocking announcement that the company asked the FAA to suspend the flights.
It said in the statement, as its stock shares started to tumble, 'Boeing continues to have full confidence in the safety of the 737 MAX.
'However, after consultation with the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), and aviation authorities and its customers around the world, Boeing has determined -- out of an abundance of caution and in order to reassure the flying public of the aircraft’s safety -- to recommend to the FAA the temporary suspension of operations of the entire global fleet of 371 737 MAX aircraft,' it said.
Boeing's stock shares tumbled on Wednesday afternoon following the announcement
More than 35 of the Boeing Max 8 and Max 9 planes were still in the air when Trump said he was grounding them as soon as they arrive at their destinations
Muilenburg simultaneously put out a condolence statement to families affected by both the Lion Air crash in October and the tragedy in Ethiopia.
'On behalf of the entire Boeing team, we extend our deepest sympathies to the families and loved ones of those who have lost their lives in these two tragic accidents,' Muilenburg said.
'We are supporting this proactive step out of an abundance of caution. Safety is a core value at Boeing for as long as we have been building airplanes; and it always will be. There is no greater priority for our company and our industry,' he added. 'We are doing everything we can to understand the cause of the accidents in partnership with the investigators, deploy safety enhancements and help ensure this does not happen again.'
Boeing's shares shot back up after it released the statement, and the company was on track to close higher than it opened late Wednesday afternoon.
Trump made the announcement at the beginning of a briefing on drug trafficking at the White House.
He called it a 'very tough decision,' especially for Boeing. 'They want this solved. They want it solved quickly. They don't know the problem yet,' he stated.
'The United States has the greatest record in the world of aviation, and we want to keep it that way, so I didn't want to take any chances,' he explained. 'We didn't have to make this decision today, we could have delayed it. We maybe didn't have to make it at all, but I felt it was important, both psychologically, and a lot of other ways.'
Trump was known to have spoken to Boeing, but he said he'd also been in contact with American and other airliners.
'We just thought it was the right thing to do,' he said.
Southwest Airlines hasn't grounded planes despite 40 countries opting not the fly the aircraft pending an investigation
The FAA said almost an hour later in a statement that conflicted with both Trump's and Muilenburg's version of events that it was 'ordering the temporary grounding' of the Boeing Max airplanes.
It said, 'The agency made this decision as a result of the data gathering process and new evidence collected at the site and analyzed today.'
The site evidence in coordination with new satellite data available just this morning 'led to the decision,' according to the statement the FAA sent out after Boeing and Trump got in front the announcement.
Investigators will continue to review flight data recorders and cockpit data recorders as it assesses the safety of the planes, the FAA asserted.
The agency's official order grounding the planes hinted at similarities that 'warrant further investigation of the possibility of a shared cause for the two incidents that needs to be better understood and addressed.'
It further posits that the Max 8 and 9 planes are nearly identical. Accordingly, the FAA said all it was grounding all 737 Max flights until further notice.
American Airlines, Southwest Airlines and United Airlines hadn't grounded the planes on their own, despite 40 countries opting not the fly the Boeing aircraft pending a full investigation.
On Wednesday morning, 33 of the models were spotted on Flightradar24,
