File photo taken on June 19, 2017 shows a Boeing 737 MAX 9 at the 52nd International Paris Air and Space Show in Bourget, France. The United States is grounding all Boeing 737 Max 8 and 9 aircraft, said U.S. President Donald Trump on March 13, 2019. (Xinhua/Chen Yichen)
WASHINGTON, March 13 (Xinhua) -- The United States is grounding all Boeing 737 Max 8 and 9 aircraft, said U.S. President Donald Trump Wednesday, as it became the last major country to do so after two crashes by the model in recent months.
"All of those planes are grounded, effective immediately," Trump told a press event, referring to the Boeing 737 Max variations.
"The safety of the American people, of all people is our paramount concern," Trump said.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) followed up on Trump's remarks with a statement, ordering the temporary grounding of Boeing 737 Max aircraft operated by U.S. airlines or in U.S. territory.
The FAA said that "new evidence collected at the site and analyzed today" led to the latest decision.
"The grounding will remain in effect pending further investigation, including examination of information from the aircraft's data recorders and cockpit voice recorders," the FAA statement said.
An Ethiopian Airlines plane en route from Addis Ababa to Nairobi, Kenya crashed Sunday, killing all 157 people aboard. A Lion Air crash in October in Indonesia killed all 189 people on board. Both were Boeing 737 Max 8 aircraft and circumstances surrounding both crashes shared alarming similarities.
It is at this point unclear what the exact causes of the crashes were, though U.S. media reported that five complaints were filed against Boeing 737 Max aircraft by pilots on a federal database months before the Sunday crash, with one pilot calling the flight manual "inadequate and almost criminally insufficient."