FAA faces pressure to ground all Boeing 737 Max 8s

The US Federal Aviation Administration is facing growing pressure to ground Boeing's 737 Max 8 jet in the wake of the Ethiopian Airlines crash last Sunday.

The FAA said on Monday that the jet remained perfectly safe to fly in said model, but while the rest of the world usually agrees with its standards, regulators from multiple countries had already moved to ban the planes from their airspace as a precaution.

The Ethiopian tragedy that killed 157 people followed the deadly crash in October of another new Boeing 737 Max 8 operated by Lion Air in Indonesia which claimed the lives of all 189 passengers and crew onboard.

American regulators said they were reviewing all the available data and expected Boeing would soon complete software improvements to the automated anti-stall system, which was the suspected cause of the first crash.

"Thus far, our review shows no systemic performance issues and provides no basis to order grounding the aircraft," acting FAA Administrator Daniel K. Elwell said in a statement. "Nor have other civil aviation authorities provided data to us that would warrant action."

The CEO of Ethiopian Airlines called for the grounding of all Max 8 jets until it's established that they're safe to fly after results of the investigations on the crash come through.

Several US lawmakers have also called for the Max jets to be grounded, including Republican Senators Ted Cruz of Texas and Mitt Romney of Utah and Democratic Senators Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, Dianne Feinstein of California, Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey of Massachusetts and Bob Menendez of New Jersey.

Sara Nelson, international president of the Association of Flight Attendants, sent a letter to the FAA’s acting administrator Dan Elwell calling for a change in their opinion.

“We fully support the investigative process and caution the public to avoid drawing conclusions prior to uncovering the facts of the incident,” Nelson wrote. “However, the second accident in less than five months involving the same model airplane gives rise to concerns and a quick jump to conclusions that undermine full confidence in the aircraft type.”

Boeing has said it has no reason to pull the popular aircraft from the skies and it doesn't intend to issue new recommendations about the aircraft to customers.