Bombardier CRJ

The Bombardier CRJ is a safe regional jet with a long record. Over about 46 million passenger flights since 1992, eight fatal accidents on passenger flights count against it, and most came down to runway choice, weather, de-icing or air traffic rather than the aircraft itself.

Where you fly on a CRJ

Canadair, later Bombardier, built about 1,945 CRJs, from the 50-seat CRJ100 and CRJ200 to the stretched CRJ700, CRJ900 and CRJ1000. Around 1,200 are still flying. Most of them are in North America: SkyWest, Endeavor Air and PSA fly them as United Express, Delta Connection and American Eagle, and Jazz flies the CRJ900 as Air Canada Express. In Spain, Air Nostrum flies the CRJ1000 for Iberia Regional. If you take a short domestic hop in the US on a major airline's ticket, there is a good chance it is a CRJ or an E175.

What matters in the design

The CRJ is a stretched Challenger business jet, with two rear-mounted engines and a T-tail. It has a glass cockpit but conventional (not fly-by-wireFly-by-wireA flight control system in which the pilot's inputs go to computers, which then move the control surfaces. Many such systems also stop unsafe manoeuvres.More in the glossary) controls, and it belongs to the same technology generation as the 737 NG.

One feature has shaped its safety history. The early CRJ100 and CRJ200 wing has no leading-edge slats, which makes it sensitive to even thin frost. On 21 November 2004, China Yunnan Airlines MU5210 crashed just after take-off from Baotou, killing all 53 people on board. Frost on the wings was a central factor. The lesson, also learned on other slat-less jets, is that de-icing has to be strict before every winter departure.

The other design-related event was a ferry flight. On 14 October 2004, the two pilots of Pinnacle Airlines 3701, flying an empty CRJ200, climbed to the aircraft's ceiling of 41,000 feet. Both engines failed and could not be restarted, and the two pilots died. US investigators (NTSB) blamed mainly the crew's unprofessional conduct.

The fatal passenger accidents

• 27 August 2006, Comair 5191 (Delta Connection), Lexington, Kentucky: the crew lined up on a runway that was too short and the jet ran off the end. 49 of 50 people died.
• 4 April 2011, UN flight 834 (Georgian Airways), Kinshasa: crashed on landing in bad weather. 32 of 33 died.
• 29 January 2013, SCAT 760, Almaty: crashed on approach. All 21 on board died.
• 29 January 2025, American Eagle 5342 (PSA Airlines), Washington National: a US Army Black Hawk helicopter flew into the CRJ700's path on final approach. All 64 people on board died.
• 22 March 2026, Jazz 646 (Air Canada Express), New York LaGuardia: the CRJ900 hit an airport fire truck on the runway while landing. Both pilots died; the 72 passengers and two flight attendants survived.

The 2003 Brit Air accident at Brest and a 2009 RwandAir Express flight at Kigali, which came back with a jammed thrust lever and struck an airport building, each killed one person. Outside passenger service, a 2024 Saurya Airlines ferry flight crashed on take-off at Kathmandu, killing 18 of the 19 people on board, and the total includes a 1993 test flight, a 2016 cargo crash in Sweden and a SkyWest CRJ200 stolen at St George, Utah, in 2012 by a man who died in it. Those do not count toward the score; our methodology explains why.

The Washington collision was the worst US airline accident since 2001. It was an airspace and air traffic problem, and nothing about the CRJ caused it. The LaGuardia collision was also a runway traffic accident, not a problem with the aircraft. In February 2025, an Endeavor Air CRJ900 flipped over on landing in Toronto and everyone on board survived.

How to tell if you are on one

Flight trackers show CRJ1 or CRJ2 for the 50-seaters, CRJ7, CRJ9 and CRJX (CRJ1000) for the stretched versions. Seating is two-by-two, and the engines sit next to the rear cabin. The 50-seat CRJ200 is noisy and cramped, and many have been retired, so the stretched versions are more common now. None of that is a reason to change your booking.