FlyBe in the UK grounding most of their Q400's. Just got a call cancelling my flight at 0800 tomorrow.
I am a former pilot and I can say that this aircraft is the most problematic I have flown as a pax. And its not just landing gear issues. In 3 years I have 3 aborted takeoffs due to "software issues", 1 stuck landing gear and numerous tech delays and cancellations. It also has a ridiculous weight and balance characteristic wherby everyone needs to sit in the back when not totally full leaving first 5-6 rows empty. What other commercial modern aircraft must do this ? This plane is wholly unsuited for commercial aviation and should be withdrawn. Just a brief list of major incidents:
Oct 2000
SAS grounds all planes of type Dash8/Q400 after a long series of instrumental problems.
SAS Q400s are out of service pending inspection of pitot/static system after an aircraft landed at Copenhagen with no speed or height information.
Jan 01
SAS Commuter and Bombardier work together to fix on going Dash Q400 problems.
Feb 01
Scandinavian carrier SAS Commuter is to ground all of its Canadian built turbo prop planes beacause of recurring inflight technical problems.
Jan 02
All Q400 grounded due to a crack found in main landing gear. This is after multiple problems with the fleet, including many unsafe gears, uplocked gear, hydraulic leaks and losses of quantity in one system, many faults related to vibration, parts of structure fallen off in flight, excessive wear on hoses, uplock hooks.
Sas examines 21 dash 8 Q400 planes for possible bolt defects.
Jan 03
An SAS (SK) Dash 8 Q400 had to make an emergency landing in Stavanger.
SAS Commuter had to ground it’s Dash8 Q400 fleet after several instances of false smoke warnings from the cargo hold resulting in multiple emergency landings.
Sep 07
Many SAS flights cancelled due to technical faults.
Sep 07
SAS Dash 8 Q400 makes emergency landing in Denmark due to landing gear failure.
Sept 12 Crash in Vilnius