Transport Canada issues Airworthiness Directive for CRJ-100 CRJ-200

Aviation Herald is reporting that

Transport Canada, the Canadian Ministry acting as Aviation Authority, have issued Airworthiness Directive (AD) CF-2008-33R1 on Jan 9th 2009, which addresses the issue of frequent flaps problems encountered on Canadair Regionaljets CRJ-100 and CRJ-200. The airworthiness directive was adopted by the European Aviation Safety Agency EASA on January 13th 2009.

The directive states: "An excessive wear condition was identified regarding end-play between the flap actuator and ball screw. Excessive wear of the screw and ball nut could potentially lead to a flap system jam."

The airworthiness directive replaces an earlier directive CF-2008-33, which had been issued on November 5th 2008.

The Aviation Herald had counted 16 incidents involving flaps problems on CRJ-200s during December 2008 and January 2009 (to date), which raised significant concerns, as stuck flaps produce higher landing speeds, increased required landing distances and thus pose additional risks.

The Aviation Herald asked Bombardier for comment on the flaps issue in early January, however received no reply to date.

In India, JetLite (formerly Air Sahara) operates seven CRJ-200.