Singapore’s SilkAir sends grounded Boeing 737 MAX 8 fleet to Australian ‘plane graveyard’

Aviation authorities grounded all MAX series aircraft after crashes involving variants of the planes in Ethiopia and Indonesia that left 346 people dead

SilkAir used to fly some of its six 737 MAX * planes to Australia but has now suspended the operation of its entire fleet of the model

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Boeing 737 MAX aircraft at a Boeing facility in the United States. Photo: Reuters

Published: 7:54pm, 2 Oct 2019Updated: 7:57pm, 2 Oct 2019

Singapore’s SilkAir has sent its fleet of Boeing 737 MAX 8 planes – the grounded model involved in two deadly crashes in the last year – for long-term storage at a “plane graveyard” in Central Australia.

Australia's Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) said on Wednesday that SilkAir had been approved last week “to conduct six ferry flights to relocate their 737 MAX aircraft to a maintenance/storage facility located in Alice Springs”.

The first of the six 737 MAX aircraft arrived from Singapore on Monday at the Asia-Pacific Aircraft Storage (APAS) facility, Tom Vincent, managing director of APAS, said Wednesday.

“We are a dedicated aircraft storage and maintenance facility for airlines until the aircraft goes for servicing,” Vincent said.

Following two crashes involving the 737 MAX 8 variants – Ethiopian Airlines in March in Addis Ababa which killed 157 people and Lion Air in Jakarta in October last year which killed 189 people – airlines and aviation authorities globally grounded the entire fleet of MAX series.

SilkAir used to fly the 737 MAX to Australia but has now suspended the operation of its entire fleet of the model, while CASA continues to temporarily prohibit commercial passenger-carrying operations of the 737 MAX aircraft from flying to or from Australia.

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