Above 15 tons Russian flight safety close to that of the US according to the FSVT

Published: 11/22/1999

According to Anatoly Bondarev, First Deputy Director of the FSVT, the number of accidents on Russian-registered civil aircraft, with a take-off weight above 15 tons, was 1.8 times lower in 1998 than in 1997. He added that 1999 safety figures are likely to show a similar rate of improvement. Bondarev claims that Russian safety records are close to those of the US in terms of the number of accidents per 100,000 flight hours: 0.03 for Russia vs 0.024 for the US. The absolute number of accidents in Russia is lower because of substantially lower traffic (20m passengers per year, compared to 600m in the US). He observed that, since 1997, no airliner flying on scheduled routes has crashed. Bondarev insisted that the FSVT would continue its programme of flight safety improvement in China, in order to eliminate the formerly commonplace practice of overloading Russian cargo planes carrying Chinese consumer goods. This has recently led to intimidation tactics at some Chinese airports (www.concise.org. 18th November 1999). He conceded that a lack of relevant legislation undermines the FSVT"s efforts to maintain effective control over the military. This is in spite of a July 1999 government decree ordering the FSVT to oversee the civilian use of military aircraft, as part of granting the use of airliners for transporting passengers and civilian cargoes. Poor flight safety is exemplified by the helicopter fleet, with a rate of 2.5 accidents per 100,000 flight hours over the first ten months of 1999. In total, six Russian-registered helicopters (four Mi-8s, one Mi-2 and one Ka-32) have crashed this year, killing 41 people.

Article ID: 1114