China suspends Boeing 737-8 flights

China's civil aviation regulator said on Monday that it has asked domestic airlines to suspend the commercial operations of all Boeing 737-8 planes by 6:00pm local time (1000 GMT), a day after a deadly crash of a 737 MAX 8 by Ethiopian Airlines.

The Ethiopian Airlines aircraft is the same model that crashed into the Java Sea shortly after take-off from Jakarta on 29 October, killing all 189 people on board the Lion Air flight.

"Given that two accidents both involved newly delivered Boeing 737-8 planes and happened during take-off phase, they have some degree of similarity," the Civil Aviation Administration of China said, adding that they took the move in line with the regulator's principle of zero-tolerance to safety hazards.