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Bombardier to investigate causes of two fatal plane crashes
Bombardier will investigate after planes built by the Montreal-based company crashed in Iran on Sunday and in Nepal on Monday, killing a total of about 60 people. Forty-nine people were killed Monday when a U.S. Bangla Airlines passenger plane carrying 71 people from Bangladesh crashed and burst into flames as it landed in Kathmandu, Nepal’s capital, officials and witnesses said. In Iran, all 11 people on board a private, out-of-production business jet owned by the private holding company of Turkish businessman Huseyin Basaran were killed when it crashed on a mountainside.
Those on board included Basaran’s daughter Mina, 28, and seven of her friends, all flying back from a party ahead of her wedding next month. The plane in the Nepal crash has been identified as the Q400 turboprop, which is built in Toronto, and a Challenger business jet in the Iranian crash.
Joseph D’Cruz, a Rotman School of Management professor emeritus who specializes in aviation, said Q400s are used by Porter Airlines and that he flies in them all the time. Air Canada also uses the plane, with its website saying the airline has a total of 44 Q400 turboprop aircraft in its fleet. A spokesperson for Westjet said Westjet Encore, a regional carrier owned by Westjet, uses the Q400. It also has 44 in its fleet. “If the plane was recognized as having a deficiency, Transport Canada wouldn’t allow Porter to fly,” D’Cruz said. “The plane is certainly considered airworthy. I have never given a second thought to flying (in) it.”
Nathalie Siphengphet, spokesperson for Bombardier, told the Star the company has delivered 29 Q400s to Porter. A senior investigator and a field service representative will depart in the morning to Nepal, she said. The causes of both crashes were not immediately available. “It (Q400) has been designed to be robust and reliable in consideration to high cycle demands of regional airlines,” Siphengphet said in an interview with The Canadian Press. Mark Masluch, director of communications and public affairs for Bombardier, said more than 1,000 Challenger 600 series planes have been delivered and that they are “one of the most robust and reliable aircrafts in business aviation.” He called the back-to-back crashes an “unfortunate coincidence,” adding that it would be “inappropriate” to comment on any links between the two accidents. The Q400, or Dash 8, is the largest prop plane made by Bombardier and can hold 86 passengers, Siphengphet said. More than 500 planes have been delivered to about 60 owners and operators in over 90 countries, she said, and have transported 500 million passengers since they first entered service in 2000. In 1992, Bombardier acquired de Havilland Canada, according to its website, which had made different iterations of the plane. Since the acquisition, however, the plane has had several technical malfunctions around the world, particularly with its landing gear. Two accidents proved fatal. In 2009, a Q400 crashed near Buffalo, killing 50 people. Initially, Colgan Air, the airline, attributed the crash to pilot error, linking it in part to a warning system malfunction, which failed to alert the pilots that they were flying too slowly. The plane had stalled and crashed into a house while preparing to land at the airport. However, the National Transportation Safety Board ultimately concluded that pilot error, including the response by the captain, was the primary cause of the accident, and determined that no aircraft issues caused the crash. In Japan, pilots had to make an emergency landing after a Q400’s landing gear malfunctioned in 2007. Less than a week later, the crew of another Bombardier-built turboprop, a smaller iteration of the Q400, had to drop landing gear manually when the automatic system failed. There were no fatalities. The same year, in Denmark, a Q400, flown by Scandinavian Airlines, underwent an emergency landing when part of one of its landing gears collapsed. Five people received minor injuries, the airline told the Star. A spokesperson said on Monday, that since 2007, Scandinavian Airlines have discontinued to use the Q400. In South Korea in 2007, a Q400 slammed into a drainage ditch after a rudder malfunction, which caused the plane to veer off course, according to Aviation Safety Network, a database listing aviation accidents.
Clarification - March 15, 2018: This article was edited from a previous version to make clear the National Transportation Safety Board determined in February 2010 that the 2009 Colgan Air crash near Buffalo was caused by pilot error, not airline issues.
https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2018/03/12/bombardier-to-investigate-causes-of-two-fatal-plane-crashes.html