Eastar Jet suspends operations of Boeing 737 Max 8 jets

Eastar Jet will suspend the operations of its Boeing 737 Max 8 jets as safety concerns rise over the aircraft. Yonhap

By Jung Min-ho

Eastar Jet will suspend the operations of its Boeing 737 Max 8 jets as safety concerns arise over the aircraft, the Korean low-cost carrier (LCC) said Tuesday.

“We will suspend the operations of our two Boeing 737 Max 8 planes on March 13,” Eastar Jet President and CEO Choi Jong-gu said in a statement. “We made that decision in cooperation with the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport's inspections of the planes.”

He also said the company will ask the U.S. plane maker to provide technical assistance.

Eastar Jet is Korea’s only airline that operates the model, using the planes for flights to Jeju, Japan and Southeast Asia.

The move comes after the crash of Ethiopian Airlines flight 302 from Addis Ababa to Nairobi, which killed all 157 passengers and crew ― only six months after a deadly crash involving the identical model in Indonesia.

There is no evidence the two disasters are linked, but both jets were almost brand new and both went down less than 15 minutes after takeoff.

Since the latest incident, Singapore, Indonesia and China have suspended the operations of all Boeing 737 Max planes.