Beijing News recently published a series of reports on the latest failures related to the Xinzhou 60 airplane, which is a regional jet model that a Chinese company completely designed and manufactured. On February 25, a sensor malfunction caused a landing gear false alarm in a Xinzhou 60 airplane operated by Aokai Airlines. Only three weeks ago, the landing gear failed when another Xinzhou 60 was landing near the city of Zhengzhou. The manufacturer of this airplane model, Xi’an Aircraft Industrial Corporation, told the reporter that it will request the government authorities to ground all domestic Xinzhou 60 planes for now. This model has a long record of accidents. On a previous occasion, it had been grounded for 74 months. Most of the Xinzhou 60 planes were sold internationally. They have suffered eight accidents outside of China, causing a total of 27 deaths. By the end of last year, 88 Xinzhou 60 had been sold to 27 buyers in 16 countries. The CEO of the manufacturer admitted that the model’s reliability is “not high.”
Source: Beijing News, February 26 & 27, 2014
http://www.bjnews.com.cn/news/2014/02/26/306455.html
http://www.bjnews.com.cn/news/2014/02/27/306596.html