Local reaction to grounding of 737s: Professor argues presidential order was premature

Rochester, N.Y. – President Trump issued an emergency order to ground all flights involving the Boeing 737 Max jets Wednesday.

The decision was made following growing calls to ground the planes after a crash in Ethiopia.

Rochester’s airport director says the grounding won’t have much of an impact here, as only Southwest Airlines flew the aircraft in and out of the local airport, and not frequently.

While those jets are grounded for now, some aviation experts say there’s no evidence yet to show the aircraft is unsafe.

RIT Professor Agamenmon Crassidis believes this is jumping the gun.

“If the FAA thought this aircraft was unsafe, it would most definitely ground the aircraft and try to come up with a resolution as quick as possible,” he said.

He has 25 years of experience in designing flight control systems. He believes there’s no data to back up grounding the planes.

“Southwest just had 41,000 flights with this particular aircraft without any incidents, so I think at this point we have to wait and see,” he said.

Southwest and American both fly the Max 8. United Airlines uses the longer Max 9. Those airlines will now have to re-book passengers.

Crassidis says the president’s decision may be premature, but it’s understandable and, in a few days, we’ll likely have more certainty about any issues with the aircraft.

“Within a day or two, we are going to find out, once these black boxes are analyzed, exactly what happened here,” he said.

Boeing has continued to endorse its plane, saying safety is the company’s first priority and the Max 8 is safe to fly.

Southwest has removed its 34 Max 8 aircraft from scheduled service. American operates 24, and United Airlines says it has 14 of those planes in its fleet, accounting for roughly 40 flights a day.

In a statement, United said, "...through a combination of spare aircraft and re-booking customers, we do not anticipate a significant operation impact as a result of this order."