Despite improving reliability, IL-96-300 still fallible

Published: 7/19/1999

Reports from Moscow have confirmed that Domodedovo flight 2208, bound for Moscow with around 300 passengers on board, returned to Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk airport one hour into the flight, owing to engine failure. No one was injured. Before the emergency landing, the aircraft orbited in order to use up fuel, which it dumped over the Uspensky swamps on the south part of the island from an altitude of 1,200m. The aircraft was due to fly, using three engines, to Moscow on July 17th 1999, where it will be examined and the cause of the failure identified. This is not the first hiccup in the track record of the IL-96-300. Unofficial reports suggest that, in particular, pre-flight maintenance takes more time that it should. Apparently Sheremetyevo technicians have dubbed it “the best 4 engine jet with 3 engines in the world". Despite this, there have been no casualties in the IL-96-300"s operational history, and recent reports from Aeroflot indicate that its reliability is steadily improving. An Aeroflot official, who requested anonymity, said that: “The trouble is that everything in the Il-96-300 design is new: the airframe the avionics and the engine". Time and money are needed to finetune the aircraft. But it still measures up in many ways to its western counterparts, and at considerably less cost.

Article ID: 685