Crash exposes shady safety record of regional airlines

The Yichun crash has many scrutinizing the safety of the entire regional air industry. Wang Zhifu/CFP Photo

By Chu Meng

The country’s flight safety record of 2,102 consecutive days without a crash came to an end last Tuesday when a Henan Airlines Embraer ERJ-190 jet crash-landed a Lindu Airport in Yichun, Heilongjiang Province.

The crash killed 42 passengers and injured 54.

The country’s last severe air crash was an Eastern Airlines Bombardier CRJ-200, which crashed in Baotou, Inner Mongolia on ovember 21, 2004, killing all 53 people on board and two on the ground.

Last Saturday, national aviation regulators ordered China Express Airlines to suspend its regional flight operations from September 1 after an incident in which the tip of a wing on its CRJ-200 plane scraped the ground during a landing at Guiyang Longdongbao International Airport.

Death of a regional airline

Ma Xueqian, a 47-year-old airport cleaner in Yichun, has witnessed two of Lindu’s most noteworthy events: the airport’s opening on August 27, 2009, and the plane crash on August 24, 2010“I never imagined this would be how the airport celebrated its first anniversary,” Maaid.

The opening of Lindu airport brought new opportunities to the city, and many residents visited the airport on its opening day to welcome the first passengers from Beijing.

But the crash has marred the airport’s imae.

Sadder than Ma and others who depend on the airport was the one-year-old Henan Airlines, a subsidiary funded by Shenzhen Airlines.

The Henan Administration for Industry and Commerce announced last Friday that it would revoke the disgraced airline’s right to use Henan in its name for having “misled the public and tarnished the province’s imageThe State Council’s probe of the crash is ongoing, and in place of its findings are growig fears over the country’s air travel safety.Henan Airlines was previously known as Kunpeng Airlines. It was re-launched as Henan Airlines this March after its headquarters moved to Zhengzhou, the capital of Henan Province, in September 2009.

It was founded as a joint operation between Shenzhen Airlines and two overseas companies in 2007.