Russia Sees Surge In Airplane Accidents As Sanctions Affect Quality Of Maintenance, Parts: Report

The number of Russia's airplane-related accidents has skyrocketed over the past year, according to reports, as Western-imposed sanctions prohibit the country from buying quality aviation parts or repairing broken airplanes.

A report by The Insider, an independent Russian news outlet, noted that since mid-2022, many Russian airplanes have seen parts malfunctioning or breaking, resulting in flights being canceled or delayed and planes having to make unscheduled landings.

In September 2022, a Boeing-738 of Pobeda Airlines was unable to leave Moscow's Vnukovo Airport after it "dropped" parts of its fuselage. The incident also prevented another plane from departing as scheduled.

A Boeing 737-800 of the Nordstar JSC also reported a fuel leak, while a plane of Ural Airlines had a landing gear malfunction while landing. A Nordwind Boeing 737-800 also cracked its windshield during a flight in the same month.

According to the outlet, Russian aviation incidents began to occur almost daily in early January, with one of the most frequent problems being landing gear.

A rough estimate by Russian news outlet Novye Izvestia put the number of civil and military aviation accidents in the country since early 2022 at more than 130. Of this figure, 28 aircraft crashed, according to the outlet.

In response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, which began in February 2022, Western countries barred Russian airlines from entering their airspace, which led foreign airlines to cut their commercial ties with Russia.

Aviation companies Boeing and Airbus also announced that they will stop providing spare parts, maintenance and technical support for Russian airlines.

Aviation experts attributed the rising cases of airplane malfunctions to the sanctions imposed by Western countries in response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine and the lack of quality control in importing plane parts from Iran, India and Africa.

One aviation expert who spoke with The Insider on conditions of anonymity said they believe the airplane accidents "will get worse."

"There will be ordinary incidents at first, then accidents, and then disasters. The groundwork that had been laid in Russia immediately after the sanctions were imposed is slowly running out, and now there is a very serious question about the need to urgently and thoroughly establish normal maintenance and repairs," the aviation expert said. "What we have now is an attempt to find alternative access to spare parts and assemblies through third countries in an emergency mode."

"And if, for example, cracks in the surface layer of the cockpit windshield are not caused by the sanctions, they appear all the time, then all the problems with the landing gear are the result of the fact that we've been installing parts purchased through third countries on our planes without the manufacturer's quality control," the expert added.

The expert claimed that due to Russia's lack of a certification system for non-original equipment manufacturer (OEM) plane parts, "not-so-honest" representatives of "friendly countries" have been selling Russia "counterfeit" plane parts with poor quality at a higher price than the original parts.

But Alexander Neradko, the head of the Russian Federal Agency for Air Transport, or Rosaviatsiya, recently told RBC that the current roster of Russian airplanes is still airworthy while downplaying reports of substandard plane parts being imported from countries with a close relationship with Russia.