Technical difficulties continued to dog regional airplanes built by a financially resurgent Bombardier last month, as no fewer than 85 Q400 turboprops sat idle while operators performed emergency inspections on their main landing gear.
Two incidents of collapsed landing gear over the span of three days involving Scandinavian Airlines (SAS) Bombardier Q400s prompted Bombardier on September 12 to call for the grounding of any Q400 that had accumulated more than 10,000 landing gear cycles. Later that day a Transport Canada AD called for an immediate detailed visual inspection of main landing gear retraction actuators on the 85 or so Q400s that had accumulated 8,000 or more landings or that had flown in service for more than four years. The AD also required a general visual inspection of the left and right main landing gear system and main landing gear retraction actuator jam nuts on all Q400s.
