Il-96-300 maintenance complaints from airport dismissed by Ilyushin

Published: 11/30/1999

It seems that there may not be complete harmony between the producer operator and designer of the Il-96-300 regarding the maintenance of the wide body aircraft. According to Vladimir Prokopchuk, Executive Director of ATB Domodedovo, the Il-96-300 fleet risks being grounded because of the lack of repair documentation on planned maintenance work after 6000 flight hours. He claimed that the Il-96-300 flagship, belonging to Aeroflot, has already reached this limit. Prokopchuk added that, while he is not certain of exact flight hour numbers for other Aeroflot aircraft, he is sure that two Il-96-300s belonging to Domodedovo Airlines will reach the 6000 hours limit by summer 2000. Prokopchuk attributed the problem to the extensive use of honeycomb structures, where maintenance work has not yet been mastered by Russia's civil aircraft repair facilities. Facilities, which in his view are experiencing difficulties undertaking maintenance on the aircraft due to lack of both expertise and specialist equipment. He suggested that the solution to the problem would be to form specialist overhaul centres equipped to tackle the Il-96-300. More generally, other sources have suggested that the Ilyushin design bureau"s attitude to the problem as being "not interested in what is happening to its designs in service" and failing to prepare a comprehensive pack of documentation on maintenance procedures on the Il-96-300. Vladimir Sakharov, Deputy Designer of the Il-96-300 at Ilyushin expressed some surprise at the comments of Prokopchuk, saying that it was difficult to understand the airport manager"s point. Currently after 60,000 flight hours or 20,000 flights all Il-96-300s return for an Ilyushin supervised inspection after which its life is extended and currently documentation exists for all these procedures. There is also an interim inspection after 20,000 hours or 2,500 flights at which Ilyushin checks documentation, structure and defects before certifying a further 20,000 or 40,000 hours of flight. Sakharov seemed reluctant however, to tackle the detail of Prokopchuk"s maintenance points,

Article ID: 1150