Rational Perspective

LONDON — Roughly two-thirds of the world, including South Africa have grounded the Boeing 737 Max as airlines see a connection between the crash of an Ethiopian Airline jet that killed 157 people and a similar disaster involving the same plane last October in which 189 people were killed when a Lion Air flight crashed into the Java Sea in Indonesia. Yet, America’s Federal Aviation Authority decided not to take action and said it had no basis to order the grounding of the aircraft. This is despite pressure from several senior politicians in the US and two unions representing flight attendants calling for it. The New York Times says there is a very cosy relationship between Boeing and the FAA, and Boeing could even choose its own employees to sit on the authority and help to certify planes. President Donald Trump initially tweeted that he thought aeroplanes were becoming far too complex to fly, “Pilots are no longer needed, but rather computer scientists from MIT”, he tweeted after the Ethiopian crash. He has a