In view of the recent events involving three crash landings of Bombardier Q400 planes, some major airlines are inclining towards dropping their plane fleet manufactured by Bombardier Corporation. The first was Scandinavian Airlines System, which refused to use its extensive fleet of 27 Q400 aircrafts after they experienced a crash landing involving a 70-seat Bombardier plane, which landing gear collapsed when the plane was landing in Copenhagen on October, 27. Fairly enough, SAS officials say that they have lost confidence in this Canadian-manufactured turboprop. The Scandinavian Airlines were the first to purchase Q400s, which were put onto the market by Bombardier Corporation seven years ago.

The current world-wide fleet of Q400s includes 165 aircrafts serving such notable carriers as Horizon Air Industries Inc. in Seattle, Japan Air Commuter, Innsbruck-based Austrian Arrows, Flybe in Great Britain, and others. Until recently, the aircrafts, some of which are assembled at the Bombardier’s Downsview plant in Toronto, had been serving well. Interestingly enough, the landing gear for Q400s is not manufactured in Canada, but supplied by the US Goodrich Corporation located in North Carolina.

Bombardier, in conjunction with Transport Canada, has assessed the situations and insisted that the systemic landing gear of the turboprops has no defects and that the Q400 remains a reliable and safe plane. However, SAS officials from Stockholm allege that they have experienced “repeated quality-related problems” with the Q400.

Bombardier Corporation was pressed to pay about $77-million to compensate for two crash landings of its aircrafts that occurred in Europe earlier (in Denmark and Lithuania). Now, after the third crash landing, SAS says that the cost of Bombardier turboprops grounding will reach US$63M. In addition, as customers do not want any more to fly on the questionably safe Q400s and as air carriers do not wish to have this plane in their fleet any longer, the entire reputation of Canadian Bombardier Corporation can be put in question.