Kazakhstan suspends operation of its only Boeing 737 Max
ASTANA. March 13 (Interfax) - The Civil Aviation Committee of the Kazakh Ministry of Industry and Infrastructural Development has imposed a temporary ban on flights of Boeing 737 Max aircraft.
"The Civil Aviation Committee announces that the operation of the Boeing 737 Max plane of SCAT Airline will be suspended in Kazakhstan on March 13, 2019," the agency said in a statement.
"There is only one aircraft of the type on Kazakhstan's register," it said.
Kazakhstan's Air Astana fleet includes a Boeing 767-300ER and a Boeing 757-200, while SCAT Airline operates Boeing-737 (NG, Max) and Boeing-757/767.
A Boeing-737 Max 8 of Ethiopian Airlines en route from Addis Ababa to Nairobi crashed 60 kilometers east of the Ethiopian capital on March 10. The crash killed 157 people on board. It was the second crash of a Boeing-737 Max 8 within the past six months. A Boeing-737 Max 8 of Indonesia's Lion Air fell into the Java Sea soon after its departure from the Jakarta Airport in late October 2018. None of the 189 people onboard survived.