CNN —
A Boeing 737 Max 8 took off from China on Friday for the first time since the government grounded all 737 Max 8 planes in 2019, according to flight tracking website Flightradar24.
In March 2019, China’s aviation authorities ordered the country’s airlines to ground all their Boeing 737 MAX 8 planes, citing the need for “strict safety risk control”. The decision followed two 737 Max 8 crashes in Ethiopia in 2019 and Indonesia in 2018.
The Boeing 737 Max 8 that took off on Friday is operated by China Southern Airlines and flew from Guangzhou to Zhengzhou, according to Flightradar24. The flight comes as China’s travel market recovers after the country abandoned the zero-Covid policy.
In September, Boeing and its former CEO Dennis Muilenburg agreed to pay hefty fines to settle charges from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that they had misled the public about the safety of the 737 Max after the two deadly crashes .
The SEC had claimed that after a Lion Air 737 Max jet crash in October 2018 that killed 189 people, Boeing and Muilenburg knew that part of the plane’s flight control system posed an ongoing safety issue, but told the public that the 737 Max is safe to fly.
After a fatal crash of the 737 Max on March 10, 2019, the SEC claimed that Boeing and Muilenburg knowingly misled the public about “slips” and “gaps” in the certification process of that flight control system.
– CNN’s David Goldman contributed to this report