Russia suffers frequent plane crashes

MOSCOW (Xinhua) — Russia, once an aviation powerhouse, has been plagued by deadly plane crashes in recent years, with the latest claiming 31 lives on Monday when a French-Italian-made ATR-72 passenger plane carrying 43 crashed in Siberia.

Local analysts have attributed these tragedies to outdated planes, poor pilot training and a lack of supervision on the industry.

Fragile Planes

Last year, six out of 28 worldwide major passenger plane crashes occurred in Russia, killing around 100 people, nearly one fifth of the total dead in plane crashes. 

In June 2011, a RusAir’s Tu-134 passenger plane, with 52 people aboard, crash-landed in Russia’s northern republic of Karelie, killing 46 people.

Three months later, a YAK-42 passenger plane carrying 45 crashed after taking off near the central Russian city of Yaroslav, claiming 43 lives, most of which were hockey players’.

Valeri Shelkovnikov, president of consulting agency “Flights Safety”, told Xinhua that the problems in the Russian aviation sector mostly exist in regional aviation operations.

“These problems does not exist in ‘central’ but in regional aviation,” he noted.

“Russia’s central airlines have successfully passed last year’s re-certification process. Moreover, Aeroflot even made itself into the best 30 world airlines, while Transaero was among the top 10,” Shelkovnikov added.

In contrast, small or regional airlines limited by finance are hard to update their planes or employ well-trained pilots, so they are less likely to ensure the flight safety, he said.

Anton Danilov-Danilian, director of the Investment Policy Committee of the Russian Chamber of Commerce, also noted that old planes are thorny problems in the country.

“After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia has purchased new planes for long-distance transportation, but old planes are still used for medium and short distance flights,” Danilov-Danilian said.

Well-known Russian test pilot Magomed Tolboyev echoed Shelkovnikov and Danilov-Danilian, noting Russian airlines were short of money.

“We don’t buy new Western aircraft. We take the leftovers banned from operation in Western countries,” Tolboyev told reporters on Monday.

As the largest country in the world sprawling from the Pacific to the Gulf of Finland of the Baltic Sea, aviation is an important means of transportation in Russia. Under Russia’s national standards, the planes operated in the country must meet the standard of flying under the temperature ranging from minus 50 degrees Centigrade to plus 50 degrees.

However, many foreign-made aircraft have not met Russia’s need.

“Their aircraft were made to be used in a warm climate. The Russian standards are far more rigorous than international (standards),” Tolboyev said.

“The worst problem is that we are not upgrading our fleet of aircraft and we are not developing out the aircraft industry,” he added.

Human Factor

Besides technical reasons, human factor is also seen as the main cause behind Russia’s plane crashes, experts said.

Although dozens of planes are over-serviced, well-trained pilots are still likely to ensure a safe flight, Shelkovnikov told Xinhua. But, the problem is that Russia faces a serious shortage of qualified pilots.

“We are losing pilots, already in short supply, and we will soon hire pilots in the West,” Tolboyev said.

After last September’s tragedy, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev ordered the Transport Ministry and relevant departments to pay more attention to the training of civil aviation pilots.

“We must give the most serious attention to the assessment of piloting skills. They are not quite all right so far,” he said.

However, it seems that the president’s order was not well implemented by the aviation sector, which is often criticized by the public for its lax supervision.

Russia is left far behind developed countries in the fields like flight safety, pilots’ quality and aviation management, said Chairman of Russia’s Helicopter Industry Association Fanis Mizayanov.

He said although the country acceded to the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) in 1970, its aviation department has refused to introduce advanced standards and stipulations from the ICAO.

The chairman said that less attention is paid to the flight safety, especially by some small airlines, as they don’t have enough money to secure a safe flight.

Mizayanov urged the country’s aviation department to closely supervise airlines, check their financial conditions and prohibit those in poor financial conditions from flights. <Xinhua/Zheng Haoning, Zhou Liang>

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