WaPo: Trump disparages Boeing 737s in private before grounding the plane after deadly crash
As President Trump consulted with administration officials Wednesday over whether Boeing's 737 Max jetliners should be grounded after a crash killed more than 150 passengers in Ethiopia over the weekend, he shared his pointed opinion of the type of plane in question.
In his words, it "sucked."
The president said Boeing 737s paled in comparison to the Boeing 757, known as Trump Force One, which he owns as a personal jet, according to White House and transportation officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations. He questioned why Boeing would keep building the model and opined that he never would have bought a 737 for the Trump Shuttle, the small airline he briefly ran three decades ago that relied on 727s before going bankrupt, the officials said.
Later in the day, Trump agreed with his aides that the Federal Aviation Administration, as the industry regulator, should formally announce the decision to ground the 737 Max planes, according to two White House officials. But when reporters were brought into the White House for a previously scheduled immigration event, he scrapped the plan.
"We're going to be issuing an emergency order of prohibition to ground all flights of the 737 Max 8 and the 737 Max 9 and the planes associated with that line," Trump announced, catching some industry officials by surprise.
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Trump was inclined to announce a grounding on Tuesday, but he received pushback from the FAA, which had not yet reached a decision, according to officials familiar with the deliberations. But Trump also equivocated himself, telling advisers that grounding planes would cause panic and could hurt the stock market, according to two people who spoke to him.
Federal regulators usually take the lead on making decisions related to safety, said Richard Aboulafia, an aerospace analyst with Teal Group.
"It's not the president's decision and it should never be the president's decision," he said, adding that he did not know whether Trump broke any protocols.
On Tuesday, as a growing number of countries were grounding the planes, Trump spoke to Muilenburg, who argued in favor of keeping the planes in the sky, according to a senior administration official. Boeing was facing increasing global pressure after reports showed that pilots had complained about the plane's automation system.
On Tuesday night, officials said, Trump was given satellite data that indicated the same 737 Max automation system believed to be responsible for a crash in Indonesia last year that killed more than 180 people may have played a role in Sunday's accident.
By Wednesday morning, officials said, Trump had also seen information about the crash from the Canadian government, which then announced it was grounding the model, leaving the U.S. as the only major country where the aircraft was being allowed to operate.
"We were coordinating with Canada," Trump said Wednesday. "We were giving them information, they were giving us information."
Throughout the process, Trump played the role of aviation expert, despite having no formal training in aeronautics. Trump told advisers about the dynamics and equipment of various airplanes, comparing them to his 757.
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Daniel Wells, who sits on the board of the Coalition of Airline Pilots Associations, said Trump should not have been the person making the announcement.
"The president isn't the right person to do it. Elwell or Chao should have made the announcement," said Wells, whose 30,000-member group did not call for the planes to be grounded. "But it was Trump who said it. That tells you everything you need to know."