-KATHMANDU
Montreal-based Bombardier Inc. has sent its two officials to Nepal on Tuesday to assist the investigation of the tragic Q400 turbo aircraft crash at Tribhuvan Airport.
An air safety senior investigator will act as an adviser and a field service representative will support the airline, said spokeswoman for Bombardier Inc. Nathalie Siphengphet.
The dead toll has reached to 51 on a US Bangla Airlines passenger plane carrying 71 people from Bangladesh that crashed and bursted into flames as it landed Monday in Kathmandu, Nepal’s capital.
Bombardier representatives for the commercial and business aircraft divisions said the company was saddened by the accident, adding their thoughts were with those impacted and their families. The Company is also awaiting the causes of another deadly aircraft crash over the past couple of days involving its Challenger business jet in Iran, stated officials.
Siphengphet and Mark Masluch stated that the those planes are “safe and reliable” and other planes haven’t been grounded. “It (Q400) has been designed to be robust and reliable in consideration to high cycle demands of regional airlines,” she said in an interview.
“Certainly accident is isolated to its own circumstances so it would be inappropriate to comment on any links between or just assume or speculate while both investigations are ongoing,” Masluch acknowledged.
The 17-year-old plane had circled Tribhuvan International Airport twice as it waited for clearance to land, a company official said.
Bombardier Air Safety Investigation Office said the company are in contact with the authorities, and will provide assistance to all authorities as needed.
The Q400 aircraft has been designed to be robust and reliable in consideration of the high cycle demand of regional airlines and was designed to comply or exceed all airworthiness certification requirements. The Q400 fleet has accumulated over 8.5 million flight hours, and has performed about 10 million takeoffs and landings to date.
The Bombardier Q400 turboprop has been in service since 2000. Currently, there are over 500 Q400 aircraft in service worldwide, and the fleet dispatch reliability over the past year was consistently over 99.5%, company stated.
