Past Problems For JFK Emergency Landing Plane Maker

View from inside the plane

Airplane manufacturer Bombardier of Montreal are feeling the heat right now since Saturday's Delta Flight 4951 emergency landing at JFK became the fifth time in two years that one of their planes was forced to land due to faulty landing gear. After the crew realized the plane's right wheel was jammed in the up position, the Atlanta to White Plains flight touched down at JFK with just two of the wheels working.

The CRJ-900 was operating as a connector flight, and it seems Bombardier of Montreal didn't build the machines to withstand taking off and touching down multiple times a day. In Saturday's emergency landing, pilot Jack Conroyd said the handbook's emergency procedures failed, and the Federal Aviation Administration said it's possibly due to flexing landing gear in newer models that can interfere with the backup landing systems. Sounds safe!

The pilot says he knew there was something with the landing when a warning light flashed on; "Something in the way the plane was handling, a slight vibration, told him that it was not a faulty engine light," said one police officer. Luckily, as he made the landing, none of the 64 passengers were hurt. By the way, Bombardier of Montreal just won a contract to design, supply and install a Monorail 300 system in São Paulo. Maybe we'll be taking a taxi the next time we're down there.

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By Jaya Saxena in News on September 28, 2010 4:27 PM

Comments [rss]

arcduke

The claim that the planes weren't designed for this type of use doesn't appear to come from Bombardier, but rather from some person who wrote an article. And clearly the author of this article doesn't know how much of our subway system is supplied by the same company.

Also, good luck with that taxi in Sao Paulo:

"Every night during evening rush hour, Sao Paulo experiences some of the worst traffic snarls in the world. In good weather, on an average night, a motorist can expect to be stuck in 50 miles of back-ups. Double that if it's raining, and if there's an accident or a public transit strike, forget about it. And don't even think about hitting the roads if it's a holiday weekend. To date, their longest backup was 182 miles on May 9, 2008, because a logging truck tipped over."

Tower18

I'm confused about how they could build a regional jet, whose specific purpose is short-haul connector flights that take off and land multiple times per day, perhaps 3-4 cycles per day, and then claim the planes weren't designed for that type of use.

SFNY

... didn't build the machines to withstand taking off and touching down multiple times a day...

Isn't that exactly what planes do all day every day?!?!