RE:Has North America become a banana republic??China is grounding max for political reason and to get better deals on future Boeing airplanes. China has far more unsafe older Chinese and Russian plane flying. Ethiopian and lion air grounding makes sense as both airlines operate max and had crashes. Australia has grounded max to help its domestic bully Qantas as they don’t have max and competing foreign airlines do. Siingpore has grounded max because a lot of LCC fly MAX their. LCC means low cost pilots, and avionics/mechanical technicians which may not have experience to deal with such technical problem.
TC, FAA and EASA are waiting for facts from Data recording to make a call. You can’t ground airplane without a justifiable reason while Ethiopian airline crash is under investigation. True both crash happen during climb out but unlike Lion air there were no earlier problem. That doesn’t mean you need earlier problems with MCAS to have crash. Grounding needs to done on facts and data and I am pretty sure TC, FAA, and EASA are reviewing and re-reviewing all of MAX certifications data to make sure all the t’s were crossed and I were dotted.