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SAS Bombardier Dash 8-400s grounded; SAS sees fault model-related UPDATE
(Adding Dueholm concern of model fault, warning of more flight cancellations) STOCKHOLM (Thomson Financial) - The aviation authority for Nordic countries has decided to ground 27 Dash 8-400 aircraft belonging to Scandinavian Airlines Systems, said the authority's Denmark division. The airline earlier said the aircraft's manufacturer Bombardier recommended that all airlines ground their Dash 8-400 aircraft, after two recent emergency landings in Denmark and Lithuania. SAS group director John S Dueholm said the airline fears the fault is model-related. 'When we see two faults in such a short time, it can't be an isolated fault. We believe it must be a model-related fault,' he said. SAS AB said its Scandinavian Airlines and Wideroee units have decided to ground their entire fleet of Dash 8-400 aircraft until further notice, following the accidents. 'No aircraft will be released for operations until these inspections have been carried out on all aircraft,' SAS said. One of SAS' Dash 8-400 (Q400) with flight number SK2748 from Copenhagen to Palanga (Lithuania) was involved in an accident today. 'The aircraft experienced technical difficulties and the crew decided to divert to Vilnius Airport (Lithuania) where the accident occurred at 1.36 am hour local time today,' SAS said. It said all passengers were evacuated after landing and no injuries were reported. SAS has 27 Dash 8-400 in its fleet, which are used for shorter flights. Bombardier is recommending that all Dash-8/Q400 aircraft, the world over should be grounded, if they have 10,000 landing gear cycles or more, until an inspection is carried out. Bombardier said it has delivered more than 160 Q400 aircraft to airlines around the world, of these there are currently about 60 Q400 aircraft with more than 10,000 landing gear cycles. On Sunday one of SAS' Dash-8/Q400 aircraft crashlanded at Aalborg airport in Denmark, when the plane's landing gear collapsed. SAS said that after grounding its Dash-8/400 aircraft, the airline lacks capacity, which it will try to cover by chartering aircraft from other airlines, RB-Boersen said citing a SAS news conference in Copenhagen. But there will be further cancellations in the coming days, group director Dueholm said. More than 100 SAS flights were cancelled today and SAS said it cancelled 103 flights on Wednesday within Europe and Scandanavia, and will lease aircraft from other companies to minimise the capacity losses. SAS said it has been in contact with competitor Sterling, which has offered to provide aircraft for the Copenhagen-Aalborg route. Dueholm said that he cannot comment on the economic aspects of the matter at the present time, including possible losses arising from the cancellations, nor whether there may be a compensation claim against the aircraft maker, Bombardier. 'At the moment, safety is the prime concern,' Dueholm said. 'We have not had the opportunity to look at the legal aspects of this. For the time being, SAS said it is waiting for instructions from Bombardier about correcting the fault. The aircraft maker and the local authorities in Vilnius will investigate why the starboard landing gear would not lock and collapsed on landing. 'We expect to get the instructions today, but there will be more cancellations if we don't,' Dueholm said. 150 departures have been cancelled due to the grounding of the aircraft, affecting 6,000 Danish and 3,000 Swedeish passengers every day. hans.chumakonde@thomson.com hc/ra/hc/slm/hc/gp/hjp COPYRIGHT Copyright AFX News Limited 2007. All rights reserved. The copying, republication or redistribution of AFX News Content, including by framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of AFX News. Neither the Subscriber nor AFX News warrants the completeness or accuracy of the Service or the suitability of the Service as a trading aid and neither accepts any liability for losses howsoever incurred. The content on this site, including news, quotes, data and other information, is provided by AFX News and its third party content providers for your personal information only, and neither AFX News nor its third party content providers shall be liable for any errors, inaccuracies or delays in content, or for any actions taken in reliance thereon.
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A file photo of an Augsburg Airways Dash 8-300, with the landing gear deployed.
The second landing gear failure on a Scandinavian Airlines System (SAS) de Havilland Canada Dash 8 (also known as a Bombardier Q400 following Bombardier's purchase of de Havilland Canada from Boeing) within the space of a week has prompted the grounding of many of the twin-engined turboprops.

On September 9, Scandinavian Airlines Flight 1209 suffered a right landing gear failure during landing at Aalborg Airport, Denmark. A fire broke out during the crash, and five people sustained injuries. This was followed today by the similar crash of Scandinavian Airlines Flight 2748 at Palanga Airport, Lithuania. No-one was injured.

The accidents have resulted in Bombardier recommending the grounding of all Q400s, which have undertaken more than 60,000 flights, as a "precautionary measure". This affects leading carriers around the world, including SAS, Alaska Air 's Horizon Air subsidiary, Flybe, Japan Airlines, Austrian Airlines Group and Augsburg Airways, and covers around 60 aircraft.

SAS and Horizon Air have grounded 27 and 15 aircraft respectively, while Flybe have grounded six. Another airline, Porter Airlines, which operates the type exclusively against any others, have pointed out that their aircraft have not undertaken enough flights to be affected by the measures.

The landing gear are manufactured in the United States by Goodrich Corporation. One industry analyst,  Cameron Doerksen, said that he felt that although the incidents and groundings obviously constitute bad publicity, he feels it would not influence the decision of a carrier considering whether to purchase Q400s. Bombardier declined 17 cents, or 2.7 percent, to C$6.23 on the Toronto Stock Exchange and SAS fell 6 kronor, or 4.8 percent, to 118 kronor in stock exchanging in Stockholm. Goodrich stock rose 19 cents to $64.96 on the New York Stock Exchange.

The groundings have caused hundreds of flights to be cancelled, leaving thousands of passengers stranded every day. The cost to SAS alone is estimated at 10-15 million Swedish kronor per day.