Almost 400 passengers were blocked from flying to Dublin Airport from the US last night amid safety concerns surrounding the Boeing 737 MAX 8 aircraft.

The planes have been banned from Irish and EU airspace as investigations continue into Sunday’s crash in Ethiopia, which killed all 157 people on board - including Irish engineer Micheál Ryan.

The crash led to questions over the safety of the aircraft – with Norwegian Air the latest airline to ground the MAX 8 and MAX 9 versions of the planes.

As a result, the airline, which uses the MAX 8 on its transatlantic routes from Dublin and Shannon, was forced to cancel its services to Rhode Island and New York.

The move affected as many as 384 passengers travelling in each direction.

Micheál Ryan who died in the Ethiopian Airlines crash on 10-03-2019.

Tragedy

Sunday’s crash came just months after another accident involving the same aircraft model in Indonesia.

A Lion Air flight crashed shortly after take-off from Jakarta in October, killing all 189 people on board.

Boeing has continued to insist that it has “full confidence” in the safety of the 737 MAX – despite countries worldwide moving to ban them from their airspace.

Ethiopian Airlines has confirmed that the plane's black box flight recorder has been found.

Boeing

Investigations are continuing to find out what caused the crash.

The Irish Aviation Authority (IAA) said it temporarily suspended the operation of all variants of the Boeing 737 MAX to ensure “the continued safety of passengers and flight crew” in Irish airspace.

“The IAA has been closely monitoring the situation, however, as we do not currently have sufficient information from the flight data recorder we have, as a precautionary measure, issued instructions to stop any commercial passenger flights on Boeing 737 MAX from any operator arriving, departing or overflying Irish airspace,” it said.

The European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) said it was suspending the MAX 8 and MAX 9 to ensure the safety of passengers.

“EASA is continuously analysing the data as it becomes available,” it said.

“The accident investigation is currently ongoing, and it is too early to draw any conclusions as to the cause of the accident.”

The US Federal Aviation Authority has issued a “continued airworthiness notification” for the planes.