Was the FOKKER 100 an aviation success or failure?

Video from the channel Aero Por Trás da Aviação about Fokker, linked on its Above Ten Thousand entry. Duration: 18:13. Language: Portuguese. Video type: Documentary.

A Brazilian educational video reviewing the history of the Fokker 100 and asking whether it was a success or a failure: while it is regarded worldwide as a benchmark regional jet, in Brazil it remained marked by accidents.

The video traces Fokker's history, founded in 1912 by Anthony Fokker: the First World War aircraft, the F.VII trimotor of the 1920s and 1930s, the F27 turboprop of 1958 and its first jet, the F28, seating about 80, which flew in 1967. In the 1980s the company replaced the F28 with a version 30% larger, the F28 Mk 100 or Fokker 100, with quieter, more economical higher-bypass Rolls-Royce Tay engines and a glass cockpit. It was launched in 1983 and first flew in November 1986; Swissair received the first one in 1988. American Airlines was the largest operator, with 75 aircraft, and TAM the second, with around 50.

It seated between 90 and 122 passengers, with a range of around 3,170 km, and 283 units were built; the smaller derivative Fokker 70 sold 48. In Brazil it turned TAM into a major airline and operated the Rio-São Paulo air shuttle, but the crash of flight 402 in Congonhas on 31 October 1996, along with other incidents, damaged its image; Oceanair, later Avianca Brasil, went as far as calling it "MK-28". TAM retired it in 2007, and its last flight in the country was in 2015. The author separates Fokker's 1996 bankruptcy from that accident, attributing it instead to financial problems and competition from Embraer and Bombardier.