For the sake of argument: their historical reputation allowed them to make determinations of safety independent of political considerations that other aviation

For the sake of argument: their historical reputation allowed them to make determinations of safety independent of political considerations that other aviation authorities must make. While it certainly sounds like there is a flaw in how the system handles erroneous sensor data, or that the interface promotes incorrect actions, the independent groundings of 737 MAX 8 planes probably are not independent in sense of each authority coming to its own determination based on their professional opinions alone. It would be politically foolish to be the lone holdout in your region. There is a real cost to grounding these aircraft, and I'd imagine that if they are grounded without specific questions that need to be answered or problems that can be fixed, it becomes even more difficult to un-ground them later.