Jakarta. The Indonesian government has ordered the grounding of B 737 Max 9 jetliners belonging to the country’s biggest airline, Lion Air after a similar aircraft suffered an inflight blowout in the United States.

Lion Air has three Max 9 jetliners in its fleet.

"We decided to suspend the operation of Boeing 737 Max 9 jetliners from January 6 until further notice," Civil Aviation Director-General Kristi Endah Murni said in a statement on Monday.

On January 5, an Alaska Airlines Max 9 jetliner had to make an emergency landing after a plug covering an unused exit door blew off the plane as it cruised about 4.8 kilometers over Oregon.

AP reported that the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) ordered the grounding of 171 of the 218 Max 9s in operation until they can be inspected. 

The Indonesian Civil Aviation Directorate has confirmed that the three Max 9s operated by Lion Air don’t have the type of mid-exit door plug like the one that broke off in the Alaska Airlines plane.

However, their operations were suspended until the inspections are completed.

In October 2018, a Lion Air’s Max 8 jet crashed 13 minutes after takeoff from Soekarno-Hatta Airport, killing all 189 people on board. 

About five months after the tragedy, another Max 8 plane operated by Ethiopian Airlines also crashed shortly after takeoff from Addis Ababa and killed 157 people on board.

An automated flight control system was blamed for the crashes, prompting the grounding of all Max 8 and Max 9 planes worldwide for nearly two years.

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