Buffalo Crash Aircraft Had Safety Issues in Past
The turboprop plane of the type that crashed at Clarence Center in Buffalo, has had no serious accidents reported in the past, but has had some safety issues.
According to the Telegraph, the same Bombardier Dash-8 Q400 aircraft that was involved in the Buffalo crash of Continental Flight 3407 was also named in two separate Scandinavian Airlines crash landings two years ago. Neither of those two crashes resulted in fatalities, but they occurred within a few days of each other in September of 2007, and as a result, the airline grounded the aircraft. In two separate incidents in Lithuania and Denmark, the same Q400 aircraft suffered a sudden crumpling of its landing gear. After the second such landing gear incident in Denmark, Scandinavian Airlines permanently grounded its fleet of 27 Q400s.
The airline has settled with the Montreal-based company for a total of $120 million, including credit on future aircraft purchases from Bombardier. The Canadian company has insisted that the Buffalo crash was the first serious and fatal crash involving a Q400, but has not denied that there have been several safety issues in the past. The company has recommended that airlines undertake routine grounding and checking of all Q400s that have clocked more than 10,000 hours of flying. The Q400 that crashed in Buffalo however, was just about a year old, and had flown just 1500 hours. The company has confirmed that its safety team will be heading to the crash site to assist in investigations.
Turboprop planes of the kind that crashed in Buffalo tend to be safe for the most part, aviation accident experts say, but they can face problems with de-icing. While larger aircraft have more sophisticated de-icing systems, turboprop planes have to be maneuvered by pilots to cope with severe icing conditions. According to figures by Flight International, despite the fact that there are four times as many jet flights as there are turboprop flights, these smaller planes have been involved in nine fatal aviation crashes last year, compared to six involving larger jets.
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