West Air Sweden
West Air Sweden, operating as West Atlantic, is a cargo airline based in Gothenburg, Sweden. It operates scheduled and ad hoc freight charter services for FedEx, DHL, TNT and UPS. It is also contracted to operate mail flights 6 nights a week on behalf of the Swedish post office and Royal Mail. Its main bases are Lidköping-Hovby Airport (LDK) and Malmö Airport (MMX).
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| Founded | 1955 | ||||||
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| Hubs | Malmö Airport | ||||||
| Focus cities | East Midlands Airport | ||||||
| Fleet size | 38 | ||||||
| Parent company | West Atlantic Group | ||||||
| Headquarters | Gothenburg, Sweden | ||||||
| Website | westatlantic.eu | ||||||
History
Since 2011 the airline has been part of the West Atlantic Group along with British cargo airline Atlantic Airlines, both airline trade as West Atlantic with its headquarters in Sweden.[1]
Fleet
Current fleet
The West Air Sweden fleet consists of the following aircraft (as of August 2016):[2]
| Aircraft | In Service |
Orders | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Boeing 737-800BCF | — | 4 | ||
| Boeing 767-200SF | 4 | — | ||
| British Aerospace ATPF | 33 | — | ||
| Bombardier CRJ200LRF | 2 | — | ||
| Total | 38 | 4 | ||
Accidents and Incidents
On 8 January 2016, West Air Sweden Flight 294, a Bombardier CRJ200 was operating a cargo flight from Oslo Airport, Gardermoen to Tromsø Airport, when it lost radar contact shortly after declaring an emergency at 23:31Z. The aircraft was later located having impacted the side of a mountain northwest of Lake Akkajaure about 10km from the border of Norway in mountainous area without road access. The flight was carrying 4.5 tons of mail and parcels.[4] Both pilots were killed in the accident.[5]
Less than one year after the accident, the Swedish Accident Investigation Authority (SHK) released the accident report[6] which identified as cause of the event, the failure of Inertial Reference Unit (IRU 1) and insufficient operational prerequisites for the management of a failure in a redundant system.
References
- Baltic Air Charter Association
- "Global Airline Guide 2016 (Part Two)". Airliner World (November 2016): 33.
- "Historical Fleet". www.westatlantic.eu.
- "Crash: West Atlantic Sweden CRJ2 near Akkajaure on Jan 8th 2016, lost height after emergency call". avherald.com. Retrieved 2016-01-08.
- "ASN Aircraft accident Canadair CL-600-2B19 Regional Jet CRJ-200PF SE-DUX Akkajaure". aviation-safety.net. Retrieved 2016-01-08.
- "Aviation Accidents Database - West Air Sweden flight SWN294". aviation-accidents.net. Retrieved 2016-12-07.
