South Africa’s civil aviation administration has ordered the grounding of all Boeing 737-200s pending engine-mounting checks, after a Nationwide Airlines aircraft shed one of its engines on take-off.

It has instructed operators to perform a series of examinations on the Pratt Whitney JT8D-powered jets following the 7 November incident at Cape Town.

The administration’s emergency airworthiness directive “prohibits the operation” of the aircraft in South Africa until “an acceptable level of safety can be demonstrated”.

Investigators are still examining the Nationwide aircraft which returned to land safely after the starboard engine separated from the aircraft. The airline has claimed that it ingested an unknown object during the take-off roll.

The purpose of the directive, says the South African authority, is to reduce the p

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