Carrier, Plane Had Clean Safety Record

The operator of the commuter flight that crashed near Buffalo and killed 50 people hadn’t had any major accidents on passenger flights in its 18-year history, the Houston Chronicle reports. Nor does the model of plane that crashed, the Bombardier Dash 8 Q400 turboprops, have a record of trouble. Colgan Air's only incident with a passenger flight occurred when another plane ignored the tower and collided with a Colgan flight on the runway at LaGuardia. A flight attendant was injured.

Two Colgan pilots were killed in 2003 when their plane crashed because of a mechanical failure, but no passengers were aboard. Colgan has been flying connections for Continental since 1997 but had no incidents on Continental connection flights—until last night’s crash. The carrier has hubs in Newark and Houston.
(More plane crash stories.)