Most of the big news lately with regards to airplanes has been about the launch of the new A380 and the Boeing 787 Dreamliner. Today’s story, however, is about an airplane being pulled out of circulation. And before any AA or NW fliers get excited about the MD-80s or DC-9s finally retiring, it isn’t those.
SAS has decided to pull the DASH-8-Q400s out of their fleet following several unfortunate incidents with regard to the landing gear failing on landing several times in the past few months. The planes are the latest edition of the DASH-8, a workhorse of the turbo-prob airplane fleet worldwide. I’ve flown on the DASH-8 for many years, as far back as the mid-80s when they were one of the planes that we used to get out of GNV. I’ve flown them from LaGuardia to Ithaca and many other routes as well.
It turns out, however, that the latest iteration of the planes seem to not land so well. And seeing how landing is a pretty important part of the whole flying process, having that part not work all the time is a bad thing. So SAS has pulled their 44 out of the fleet. There are ~120 others in service around the world (including one that also had landing issues in Japan back in March) and other airlines have announced plans to implement them in the near future, though those plans are now going to need to be re-examined.
Here’s hoping that you aren’t flying on one anytime soon.
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