By Vincent on Oct 27, 2007
New incident – SAS Dash 8 Q400 grounded again !
All the SAS Bombardier Dash 8 Q400 are grounded again ! Flight SK2867 from Bergen to Copenhagen made an emergency landing today after problem with the landing gear has been reported. All details can be found in this SAS press release.
No detailled technical information is available for the time being. It is well too early to say if this accident relates to those that occured in September. As they also relate to landing gear, it’s tempting to establish a link, but once again, investigation would tell. It could just be bad luck !
Information about the previous incidents can be found here.
2 Comments, Comment or Ping
Elliott Kefalas
The story simce to be very dangerous.
I think the problem has to do with the low temperatures.
The story with the Q400 starting back in 2002 with Tyrolean fleet on Q400.
Winter of 2003 there was an incident in Frankfurt airport with a Tyrolean Q400.
Here are the press releases of Tyrolean (Austrian group) of that period.
http://www.airtransportnews.aero/article.pl?&id=5788
Also today came up the issue with ANA Q400s. Last incident (similar to SAS) was in March.
http://www.airtransportnews.aero/article.pl?&id=2476
Now ANA reporting 50 incidents from March. Also they didn’t pay so much attention for those incidents. But now after 3 SAS incidents the situation is strange.
So we have 3 operators flying in ice conditions. A crack is impossible to observed easy. It is a structural issue.
The latest Bombardier AD (Airworthiness Directive) followed up by Australian authorities for Qantas Link Q400s. They never face similar problems. But I guess they don’t operate in that low temperatures.
I can not analyse the temperature issues on metal parts but I still believe the low temperature is related.
Oct 28th, 2007
PlasticPilot
Thank you very much Elliott for this very documented and instructive comment. Just as you I can’t draw any conclusion yet as there is no official / final report available.
The temperature hypothesis is interesting. However given the extremely low temperatures at high altitude, I don’t know if this can be a factor. On the other hand, at high altitude, the gear is up, and more protected…
Will see what the final report will say, even if the SAS Dash 8’s are now withdrawn from operations.
Oct 28th, 2007
Reply to “New incident – SAS Dash 8 Q400 grounded again !”