Bombardier grounds turboprops
MONTREAL -- Bombardier asked airlines Wednesday to ground 60 of its Q400 turboprop aircraft for inspection after landing gear failures forced two of the planes into crash landings over the previous four days.
Japan Airlines Corp, All Nippon Airways, Deutsche Lufthansa AG subsidiary Augsburg Airways, Alaska Air Group unit Horizon Air, SAS and other carriers began pulling some Q400s out of their fleet rotations after Bombardier and landing gear maker Goodrich Corp. recommended inspections for those Q400s that have had more than 10,000 take-off and landing cycles.
Bombardier took the step after right landing gear on Q400s flown by Scandinavia's SAS collapsed on touchdown in two separate incidents.
A Q400 with 52 people on board made an emergency landing in Vilnius, Lithuania, Wednesday after the right landing gear collapsed on touchdown. On Sunday, a Q400 with 73 people aboard crash landed in Aalborg, Denmark, in a similar incident.
SAS said no one was seriously injured in either accident.
Montreal-based Bombardier, the world's third-largest civil aircraft maker and No. 1 manufacturer of trains, said it has delivered more than 160 Q400 aircraft to airlines around the world.
"Our priority right now is to get the inspections rolling and to ensure that some of the older aircraft with the higher cycles are visually inspected and get back into operation as quickly as possible," said Bert Cruickshank, a spokesman for Bombardier Aerospace.
The airlines grounding Q400s had to cancel dozens of flights. Cruickshank said information on any costs stemming from the grounding was confidential.
Benoit Poirier, analyst at Desjardins Securities, said the grounding would probably not have long-term material implications for Bombardier.
"We believe it is unlikely that any fallout will affect orders or deliveries," he wrote in a research note.
Bombardier said Transport Canada has been briefed on the situation and that it was working with the government agency to establish requirements for possible further corrective action.
"Until such time as investigations are concluded by the relevant aviation authorities, Bombardier cannot speculate or comment as to the cause of these incidents," the company said in a statement.
Canada's privately held Porter Airlines, said its operations were unaffected by Bombardier's directive as its fleet of Q400s are newer and the carrier found no problems in recent inspections.
The Q400 turboprop, which can seat between 68 and 78 passengers depending on its configuration, has been in operation since 2000.
The SAS mishaps were not the first involving landing gear on a Bombardier Q400 this year. In March, an All Nippon Airways Q400 carrying 56 passengers and four crew landed safely after its nose gear failed to descend.