Porter Airlines Uses Same Type Of Turboprop Plane Involved In Crash

Porter Airlines

The Dash 8 Q400 came down directly on a house in a residential neighbourhood outside of Buffalo, killing 49 people in the plane and one person on the ground. It’s the first fatal crash involving this model of aircraft. Porter has eight of the planes. It’s a new fleet, the oldest was built in 2006.

Aviation experts note that the Q400 (the Q reportedly stands for “quiet”) is a popular plane in high demand, in part because it’s fuel efficient. The twin-engine turboprop can carry up to 78 passengers. There are 220 in service around the world.

Colgan Air, the Continental Airlines affiliate that operated the doomed plane, had received 15 of the Q400s and had ordered 15 more. The one involved in the crash had only been in service for a few months.

The aircraft is built at the Bombardier plant in Downsview, north of downtown Toronto. Workers there said they were horrified to hear about the crash.

“Sick to my stomach, near tears,” said employee Tom Bartnik. “I had a big part in building these airplanes. I’m responsible for the DC power on the aircraft. Something I built goes down like that for whatever reason, it’s just horrible.”

Dave Williams noted he was in “utter shock. I couldn’t believe it, it’s a state-of-the-art aircraft. Can’t believe that something like this could happen.”

Bombardier spokesperson John Arnone said it’s the first such incident where loss of life has resulted from the model but two years ago the fleet was grounded due to landing gear problems.

“This was a tragic event and we need to get to the bottom of it which is why we’re supporting the investigation,” he said.

Porter’s fleet flies to a number of cities including Ottawa, Newark, and Chicago. Passengers preparing to fly out Friday morning weren’t concerned.

“I heard there was a crash in Buffalo. Bombardier plane, built in Toronto, but that is never expected,” noted Sean Kelly.

Another flyer, Gabe Garfinkle, suggested, “So far, Porter has been awesome. They have the best customer service. It’s been quick, easy. I have no complaints about Porter.”

Witnesses reportedly heard the Continental aircraft sputtering before it went down in light snow and fog, but it will be some time before crash investigators find out what happened. There was no indication in air traffic control communications with the pilot that anything was wrong before it went down in Clarence, about 35 kilometres from the Canada-U.S. border.

In Japan, a Q400 plane made a nose-first landing when the landing gear failed to deploy.

In late 2007, Scandinavian Airline Systems permanently grounded its fleet of Dash 8 Q400 planes after three landing accidents occurred in a seven week stretch in Denmark and Lithuania.

Landing gear was reported to be the cause, and Bombardier since said it has rectified the problem.

A piece of rubber stuck in the landing gear apparently prevented it from extending properly, a preliminary report found.

No one was seriously injured in that incident.

Porter Airlines said it hasn’t experienced any substantial safety problems.

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