Why are there 40 737 Max planes in flight when they have been grounded as not airworthy? Many countries have already grounded 737 Max planes and as of Mar 13, 2019 the FAA have stated:


  The FAA is ordering the temporary grounding of Boeing 737 MAX aircraft (PDF) operated by U.S. airlines or in U.S. territory. The agency made this decision as a result of the data gathering process and new evidence collected at the site and analyzed today. This evidence, together with newly refined satellite data available to FAA this morning, led to this decision.


Source FAA Statement on Boeing 737 Max 

So why are there currently 40 737 Max planes in flight according to FlightAware?



Who would be liable should one of these flights crash on takeoff, potentially over a densely populated urban environment?
Most of them are probably on a ferry flight. The EASA directive allows 1 transfer with up to 3 flight legs without passengers.

Some of them are travelling between countries where they are not grounded.

When a commercial plane crashes, the airline is liable, unless it can prove that the manufacturer is at fault.



I revisited the FlightAware search for B737M today (March 15th), because I was curious how the picture has changed. Same time of the day, just 1 day later:



There is now much less B737M traffic in the US, none in EU, slightly less in Asia, and increased traffic in Africa. That would be coherent with what I answered yesterday, but I was also curious about @Ben's claim that the FlightAware data is not correct. Now this is what I found:



The search in FlightAware identified 26 flights as B38M. Cross checking with FlightRadar24 delivered:


1x 737 MAX 8
18x 737 other than MAX
1x 787-9 Dreamliner
6x not found


The only 737 MAX was - according to FlightRadar24 - AAL9663 from Miami to Phoenix.

I am not sure what exactly FlightAware is showing. My guess is that they are showing the types that are planned to execute the flight.