Boeing, the world's largest aircraft manufacturer, said it would be deploying new software in coming weeks for its 737 Max airliners, which has had two crashes in recent months.

The crashes included the one March 10 that killed 157 people aboard an Ethiopian Airlines jet.

That prompted several countries to ground their fleets of 737 Max jets.

The disasters have prompted alarm over the reliability of the plane.

The aerospace company, headquartered in Chicago, said in a statement March 11 that it had been working on a flight control software enhancement for several months in aftermath of the Indonesia crash.

Aside from Ethiopian Airlines, China, Indonesia, and Mexico also have grounded all their Boeing 737 Max planes.

Boeing says about 350 737 Max jets are in use around the world, and it has taken more than 5,000 orders since it entered commercial use in 2017.

The jets are designed to be fuel efficient, with larger engines, thus resulting in greater fuel savings.

The U.S. aviation regulator, the Federal Aviation Administration, said in a statement saying that while others have drawn similarities between the Indonesia and Ethiopia crashes, the agency was not.

"This investigation has just begun and to date we have not been provided data to draw any conclusions or take any actions," the agency said.

With reporting by AP