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Boeing employees working on the 737 MAX in the Renton plant in Washington State in the United States on March 23, 2019. AFP Photos / Jason Redmond

The American aircraft manufacturer Boeing is further bogged down in the worst crisis in its history and announces that production of its 737 MAX will be halted by January 2020. The plane has been banned from flying since March 2019 after two deadly crashes.

In 20 years, this is the first time that Boeing has been forced to stop production . The measure will be effective from January 2020. It took two days of discussion to the board of directors of the American aircraft manufacturer in Chicago for them to finally make the decision Monday, December 16, specifies our correspondent in the United States, Éric de Salve . There were no other options for the American Boeing.

FAA Does Not Authorize Boeing

The decision was made after the Federal Civil Aviation Administration's (FAA) announcement late last week not to approve the return to service of the 737 MAX. Another refusal after new tests deemed insufficient of the flight stabilizer in question in the two crashes with the same characteristics 5 months apart which caused the death of 346 passengers.

►Read also: Exchanges between pilots on the 737 MAX put Boeing in turmoil

This time, the FAA does not want to take any risks, because the American regulator is itself under fire from intense criticism for having certified this aircraft now considered dangerous by minimizing the risks and by botching controls partly entrusted to Boeing judge and part of the process.

400 737 MAX devices in stock

Since the worldwide flight ban on its flagship product in March. Boeing had slowed down from 52 to 42 Boeing 737 MAX products per month without being able to deliver them. But Boeing did not expect the flight ban to be as long and so the planes are starting to build up. The manufacturer is now left with more than 400 devices in stock.

At its Renton factories near Seattle, 12,000 employees are now in limbo even though Boeing is not announcing any layoffs. Some of them will be redeployed to other sites in the region. Thousands of subcontractors are stopped and production of the 737 MAX is suspended for an unknown period.

As for the financial impact, Boeing will reveal it when it publishes its annual results at the end of January. The note may be salty, so far, the crisis has already cost the company $ 9 billion. Even before the announcement of this suspension, following the indiscretions of the Wall Street Journal , in an official meeting, the manufacturer's action lost more than 4% of its value on Monday, December 16.