Report: Last Week's Teterboro Mishap Was Second In 14 Months

General media outlets focused over the weekend over questions about the Bombardier Challenger series of aircraft, in the wake of Wednesday's roll-off-the-runway accident at Teterboro Airport in New Jersey.

"Everyone is doing the same thing. They are asking is there a problem and what are the facts," SentientJet CEO Steve Hankin told the North Jersey Herald.

Let's examine the facts.

Wednesday's accident at Teterboro was the second involving a Bombardier Challenger series aircraft in 14 months. In both cases, the aircraft ran off the end of the runway -- opposite ends of the same runway. Neither case involved a fatality.

There are now 64 early model Challengers still in the air over the US. In the quarter-century since the aircraft went into service, the Herald reports finding a total of nine NTSB investigations involving Challengers. In seven of those nine, human errors were determined to be either primary or secondary factors.

A Challenger went down during the CL-600 test program killing the pilot.

Two people were killed when a CL-600 crashed into the side of a Canadian mountain. In that accident, investigators found the pilot may have suffered heart problems just before impact and, in any case, tried a visual approach when instrument meteorological conditions existed over the runway.

Bombardier continues to stand by its plane. The CL-600 series "has a well-earned reputation in the industry as a very reliable, very safe aircraft," spokesman Leo Knaapen told The Sunday Record of Bergen County.

FMI: www.ntsb.gov, www.aerospace.bombardier.com