Stockholm’s public prosecutor has dropped an investigation into SAS Group initiated after the airline company suffered the second of three Bombardier Q400 landing accidents last year.
The prosecutor opened the inquiry, centred on suspicion of ‘creating danger to another person’, after a Scandinavian Airlines Q400 accident in Vilnius on 12 September 2007.
That accident had been preceded by a similar event in Aalborg three days earlier. The prosecutor opted to determine whether SAS Group’s operation of Q400s exposed passengers to hazards.
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“It is gratifying and logical that the prosecutor has now established that SAS did not act incorrectly in conjunction with the Q400 accidents,” says SAS Group chief Mats Jansson.
“Both the Danish accident investigation board and the aircraft’s manufacturer have previously stated that the cause of the two incidents in question was a design fault that could not have been detected by SAS’ maintenance programme, as approved by the authorities.”
SAS Group withdrew its entire Q400 fleet after a third landing accident, at Copenhagen, a few weeks later. The company has since opted to acquire updated versions of the type as part of a regional fleet renewal.
Source: Air Transport Intelligence news
Source: Flight International
