Aviation experts said the Chinese Modern Ark 60 aircraft should undergo safety checks, following an accident during a landing on Sunday in Fuzhou, Fujian province.

 

An inbound passenger plane veered off the runway at Fuzhou Changle International Airport on Sunday at noon, injuring seven people.

 

The plane, operated by the Chinese domestic carrier Joy Air, had 45 passengers and seven cabin crew aboard when the accident happened.

 

An initial investigation by the East China Regional Administration of the Civil Aviation Administration of China said on Monday that human error may have been to blame in the accident.

 

Although the investigation did not point to a flaw in the airplane's design, Zhou Jisheng, a civil aviation researcher, urged the manufacturer to conduct an immediate check. 

 

The Fuzhou incident involved a broken undercarriage, or landing gear, the latest in a series of MA-60 incidents related to the gear. That raises a question about the safety of the airplane and whether it has a design flaw, Zhou said.

 

There have been 17 MA-60 accidents in the past six years, seven of them related to the landing gear.

 

Introduced in 2000, the MA-60 is China's only home-grown passenger aircraft in service. By the end of last year, there had been more than 270 orders for the aircraft at home and abroad. In China, Joy Air and Okay Airways are its two major customers.

 

The MA-60 was developed and built by State-run Xi'an Aircraft Industry Group. No comment has been made by the company as of Monday.

 

The CAAC's East China Regional Administration said further investigation of the incident is underway.

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