Airline Safety Fears

Q400 Crashes in Denmark on 9th Sept due to landing gear failure
   

Q400 crashes in Lithuania on 12th Sept due to landing gear failure
  

Flybe: 33 Q400's in its fleet.
  

All Nippon Q400 - Crashed in March due Landing Gear Failure  
      

Horizon Air: Grounded all of its Q400's
          

Lufthansa Regional - Augsburg: Q400 Landing Gear failed to lower last week
            

SAS: Grounded all Q400's in its fleet
        

Budget Airline Flybe has moved to reassure their customers of the airworthiness of planes on their Irish routes. This follows the recommendation by Canadian airplane manufacturer Bombardier that their Q400 aircraft be grounded for inspection following five accidents so far this year. Flybe operates out of Dublin, Galway and Belfast to 18 destinations in the UK and Channel Islands.

Listen to our report from Today with Pat Kenny on Friday 28th October.

Earlier this month, within three days of each other, the right hand side landing gear on two different Scandinavian Airlines Q400's failed. One incident in Denmark was captured on film by plane spotters.

Click here to see the film.

Following these incidents Bombardier stipulated that all Q400's with over 10,000 take off and landings be grounded for immediate inspection. This affected 60 of almost 140 planes in service. Scandinavian Airlines and Alaskan regional carrier Horizon Airlines took the precaution of grounding all the Q400's in their fleet.

UK based budget carrier Flybe with 33 Q400's in its fleet owns more than any other airline. They did not take the same steps as SAS, Lufthansa and Horizon in grounding all craft. They told the RTE Radio Investigative Unit that they recently successfully completed a precautionary inspection on all of their Q400 fleet. Spokesman Niall Duffy said that it was not necessary to remove all craft from service as they had carried out every precautionary check necessary and all those that Bombardier had requested.

Incidents Involving the Q400 landing gear failure so far this year.

• 13 March 2007
  All Nippon Airways Flight 1603, a Dash 8 Q400 aircraft, bound from Osaka to Kochi, nose-landed safely at Kochi airport after the front wheel of the plane failed to deploy. None of the 53 passengers or 4 crew was injured. Bombardier advised all operators to inspect the nose landing-gear mechanism of the aircraft.
  
  
• 12 August 2007
  A Dash 8 Q400 aircraft skidded off the runway at Gimhae International Airport in South Korea, injuring 6 people and damaging the aircraft, particularly the left propeller.
  
  
• 9 September 2007
  The crew of Scandinavian Airlines flight 1209, en route from Copenhagen to Aalborg in Denmark, reported problems with the locking mechanism of the right side landing gear, and Aalborg Airport was prepared for an emergency landing. Shortly after touchdown the right wing gear collapsed and the airliner skidded off the runway while fragments of the right propeller shot through the cabin and the right engine caught fire. Of 69 passengers and four crew on board, 11 were sent to hospital, five with only minor injuries. About a month earlier the same airplane had had to return to Copenhagen 10 minutes after departure due to problems with the indicator lights of the landing gear.
  
  
• 12 September 2007
  Scandinavian Airlines flight 2748 from Copenhagen to Palanga in Lithuania had a similar problem with the landing gear, forcing the plane to land in Vilnius. No passengers or crew were injured. Immediately after this incident SAS grounded all their 33 Dash-8/Q400 planes and, a few hours later, Bombardier recommended that all Dash-8/Q400s with more than 10,000 flights be grounded until further notice.
  
  
• 21 September 2007
  An Augsburg Airways Dash 8 Q400 bound for Peretola Airport in Florence, Italy experienced a failure of the actuator mechanism on the front landing gear, preventing the gear from folding out. The pilots returned to Munich International Airport and performed an emergency landing. No passengers were harmed in the incident.