BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS
DATE:
15/02/2008
Bombardier jet flips during takeoff
YEREVAN, Armenia-A Bombardier-built regional jet carrying 21 people flipped over and burst into flames during takeoff from Armenia's capital yesterday.
Of the 18 passengers and three crew aboard, 10 were taken to hospital, but none of their injuries appeared to be life-threatening, an airport spokesperson said.
The 50-seat CRJ100, owned by Belarus's state airline, Belavia, was headed for Minsk, Belarus, when it crashed on the runway at Zvartnots Airport, said Avtiom Movsesian, head of Armenia's civil aviation authority.
Belavia acquired the nine-year-old aircraft last February. More than 1,000 of the aircraft have been delivered since they went into service in the early 1990s, said Marc Duchesne, a spokesperson for Bombardier in Montreal.
"I don't recall any similar events with this aircraft," he said.
Last year, Scandinavian Airlines permanently grounded its fleet of 27 Bombardier Dash 8 Q-400 aircraft after suffering three landing accidents over a seven-week period. It blamed faulty landing gear for the accidents.
Bombardier stood behind the landing gear's design and a subsequent investigation by the European Aviation Safety Agency into one of the crashes found the malfunction was not due to a design error.
Associated Press, The Canadian Press
Source:
http://www.thestar.com/Business/article/303841
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