Start-up regional operator Great Dane Airlines is expanding its fledgling network from Aalborg into its Scandinavian neighbourhood. It is planning to open services to the Swedish capital Stockholm, serving Arlanda airport, as well as the city of Gothenburg. Although flights will commence on 14 November, the services will be relatively infrequent, just once every two weeks. Great Dane says the departures to Stockholm will take place in "odd weeks" and Gothenburg in "even weeks". While there are no air services connecting Aalborg to either Swedish city, both are served multiple times daily from Copenhagen. Aalborg is geographically closer to Gothenburg than to Copenhagen, but Great Dane would be competing with frequent ferry services to Gothenburg out of the Danish port of Frederikshavn. Great Dane uses a small fleet of Embraer 195s. It commenced services in June this year and operates scheduled flights to Nice, Dublin and Edinburgh.

Source: FlightGlobal

Preliminary information from Colombian investigators indicate that an ATR 72-600 suddenly sank in the moments before touchdown, leading to hard landing and tail-strike. The Regional Express Airlines aircraft (HK-5041) suffered structural damage during the accident, which occurred on 7 September as it landed at Manizales in central Colombia. It had been arriving from Bogota as flight AV4852, operating on behalf of Avianca. French investigation authority BEA, citing its Colombian counterpart, says the aircraft experienced a "sudden sink" over the threshold of runway 10. Meteorological data for the city's La Nubia airport at time of the accident, around 11:00, show no adverse weather conditions, but indicate a tailwind. Video images circulated on social media, purporting to show the tail-strike from surveillance cameras, suggest the impact occurred about 100m from the threshold, almost immediately after the aircraft pitched nose-up in the flare. None of the 49 passengers and five crew members was seriously injured.

Source: FlighGlobal

UK investigators have revealed that reluctance to use a cockpit cup-holder resulted in coffee being spilled over control panels on a Condor Airbus A330, causing substantial radio communications problems and forcing a diversion. The A330-200 had been operating from Frankfurt to Cancun on 6 February this year. It had commenced the transatlantic crossing when the cockpit crew was served coffee in cups without lids. The UK Air Accidents Investigation Branch says that, while Airbus recommends using the cup-holder, the size of cups used by the carrier on the route made lifting them from the holder difficult. "This incompatibility generally discouraged use of the cup holder, despite the policy," it states, adding that the crew naturally tended to place cups on the fold-out table in front of them – making them "vulnerable" to being knocked over.
The coffee on the A330 captain's table was spilled, with a small amount falling on the left-hand audio control panel, which immediately malfunctioned and subsequently failed. Some 20min later the first officer's corresponding control panel also became hot and failed – although the precise reason for this was not clear. VHF radio transmissions and public-address announcements were affected by the malfunctions and the captain chose to divert to Shannon, with the precautionary use of cockpit oxygen masks owing to electrical smoke emanating from the panel.

Source: FlightGlobal