Aerophobia or fear of airplanes is quite common, although statistics have long recognized air transport as the safest. Despite the fact that car accidents annually claim several times more lives, the tragedies with planes shock people with their scale. In addition, the chances of surviving a serious accident are usually minimal. Unfortunately, in Russia the list of victims of plane crashes is replenished every year, and in terms of the number of accidents, our country has been among the leaders of the sad rating for many years.
The largest plane crashes in 10 years
Over the past ten years (2009-2018), there have been 10 major disasters related to our country. This sample includes aircraft of Russian airlines that crashed abroad. Also counted were foreign aircraft that crashed in Russia.
According to Wikipedia, the cumulative death toll was 750. All these crashes were widely covered in the media, leaving a heavy mark on the heart of every Russian citizen. In most cases, the investigation into the causes of the tragedies has already been completed, but for several accidents, investigative actions and the study of evidence are still ongoing.
List of the largest plane crashes in 10 years:
- the death of the presidential plane TU-154M near Smolensk (2010);
- the Tu-134 disaster near Petrozavodsk (2011);
- the crash of the Yak-42D plane near Yaroslavl (2011);
- plane crash ATR-72 near Tyumen (2012);
- crash of Boeing-737 in Kazan (2013);
- the crash of the Airbus A321 over the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt (2015);
- crash of Boeing-737 in Rostov-on-Don (2016);
- the Tu-154 disaster near Sochi (2016);
- the death of the An-148 board in the Moscow region (2018);
- crash of An-26 near the Khmeimim base in Syria (2018).
Plane crashes 2010-2013
In a plane crash near Smolensk on April 10, 2010, the President of Poland, Lech Kaczynski, representatives of the country's leadership, the armed forces and public organizations, famous religious figures, and members of Parliament were killed. All of them flew to Russia to honor the memory of the victims of the Katyn massacre.
The presidential plane crashed while landing in difficult weather conditions. The victims of the accident were 96 people - this is a record number in the statistics of all accidents in which the first persons of states died.
The investigation of the Interstate Aviation Committee (IAC) lasted for almost a year. In January 2011, the main reasons leading to the tragedy were announced:
- landing of an aircraft in weather conditions below the minimum permissible values;
- the airliner goes beyond the minimum descent altitude while simultaneously exceeding the speed;
- psychological pressure on the crew by the Polish leadership;
- ignorance by pilots of warning systems about dangerous proximity to the ground.
- insufficient training of the crew and, in particular, the commander for landing in adverse weather conditions.
The Polish side did not agree with all the arguments of the IAC, so in July 2011 it initiated its own investigation, but its results were soon canceled. According to a second check, which began in 2016, the Polish commission named the explosion of an airplane wing and deliberate deception of pilots by the controllers of the Smolensk airfield as the cause of the crash. Russia categorically rejected these accusations.
On June 20, 2011, the Tu-134 airliner of the RusAir airline followed the route Moscow-Petrozavodsk. During the landing approach in poor visibility conditions, the plane touched trees, collided with the ground and caught fire. At the time of the disaster, 44 people were killed, three later died in the hospital, five were rescued.
The main reason for the crash of the IAC called the uncoordinated actions of the crew and the outdated equipment of the aircraft that controls the landing approach. This tragedy is similar in circumstances to the catastrophe near Smolensk.
Aviation experts argue that the largest number of accidents occurs when aircraft take off or land. Just during takeoff on September 7, 2011, the Yak-42D airliner crashed, performing a charter flight from Yaroslavl to Minsk with the Lokomotiv hockey team on board. Unable to gain altitude, the aircraft, after a few seconds of flight, touched a radio beacon and crashed into the bank of the Tunoshonka River.
44 people were killed: almost the entire core of the Lokomotiv team, its coaching staff and staff, as well as 8 crew members. Aviation equipment maintenance engineer Alexander Sizov managed to survive. According to the results of the investigation, it was established that the uncoordinated actions of the crew during the takeoff and takeoff of the aircraft led to the tragedy.
The ATR-72 plane of UTair airline crashed on April 2, 2012 near the village of Gorkovka near Tyumen. He was heading for Surgut, but managed to stay in the air for less than a minute. 33 people were killed, 10 were rescued.
The development of an emergency on board was caused by icing of the aircraft body, which was not eliminated during preparation for the flight. As a result of the deterioration of aerodynamic characteristics, the airliner went into stall mode, which the crew did not notice in time.
In 2013, the largest plane crash in Russia was the crash of a Boeing-737 while landing at Kazan airport. The plane belonged to the airline "Tatarstan", there were 50 people on board - all of them died. Among the factors that led to the unfavorable development of the air incident, the IAC named inadequate flight training of the crew, including for flying a Boeing-737, improper work with navigation equipment, and a formal approach to testing the knowledge of pilots in the airline.
Plane crashes 2015-2018
The black day in the history of Russian aviation was October 31, 2015, when the largest disaster in Russian history in terms of the number of victims took place. On the Airbus A321 airliner of the Kogalymavia company, tourists returned home after a vacation in sunny Egypt. Takeoff from the airport in Sharm el-Sheikh took off normally, but after 23 minutes the plane stopped communicating. Its fragments were found on the Sinai Peninsula. All 224 people on board were killed, including 25 children.
The destruction of the aircraft in the air occurred as a result of a terrorist attack - a bomb was planted in the tail section. ISIS militants claimed responsibility. Since November 16, 2015, Russian President Vladimir Putin has suspended air links with Egypt.
A FlyDubai aircraft crashed as a result of an unsuccessful landing at Rostov-on-Don airport on the night of March 19, 2016. 62 people died, no one survived. A preliminary investigation revealed errors in the actions of the crew, which led to a sharp loss of altitude and a collision of the aircraft with the ground. The final report of the IAC has not yet been published.
Shortly before the new 2017, there was another tragedy in the air. The Tu-154 airliner of the Russian Ministry of Defense landed in Sochi on December 25, 2016 for refueling en route to the Syrian city of Latakia. After leaving the airport, he stayed in the air for a little more than a minute, and then collapsed into the Black Sea. On board flew artists and leaders of the Alexandrov Academic Ensemble, 9 journalists from federal channels, public figure Elizaveta Glinka. The investigation period of the disaster was extended until March 2019; according to unconfirmed information, it was caused by the loss of spatial orientation by the aircraft commander.
2018 was marked by two major accidents. In February 2018, a Saratov Airlines plane crashed in the Moscow region, killing 71 people. About a month later, on March 6, an An-26 military aircraft crashed near the Khmeimim base. The victims of the tragedy were 39 people, of which 33 passengers were servicemen of the Russian army. These two disasters are under investigation, the results will be published later.
Reliability of Russian airlines
Based on statistical data for 20 years and a comprehensive assessment by other criteria, the authoritative European Aviation Security Agency has compiled a rating of the most reliable air carriers in Russia. It includes 3 major airlines:
- Ural Airlines;
- S7 Airlines;
- Aeroflot.
The undisputed leader is Ural Airlines. In its twenty-year history, the company has not had a single major casualty incident.
The S7 Airlines carrier, which previously bore the name "Siberia", also has good statistics. There are 3 major accidents in his history:
- the crash of the Tel Aviv-Novosibirsk flight in October 2001, which was shot down during an air defense exercise in Ukraine, killing 78 people;
- the terrorist act on board the Tu-154B2 aircraft en route from Moscow to Sochi on August 24, 2004, 51 people died;
- the crash of the A-310 aircraft on July 9, 2006 in Irkutsk, which led to the death of 125 people.
Aeroflot Airlines has existed since the times of the USSR, for a total of almost 100 years. During this time, she has experienced many incidents and disasters. However, in the recent history of Russian aviation, the number of accidents is minimal. The last major disaster was dated October 25, 2000, when an IL-18D cargo-passenger aircraft crashed at the Batumi airport during the landing approach. On board were servicemen on their way to the 12th military base of the Group of Russian Forces in the Transcaucasus, and members of their families, including 7 children. A total of 84 people died. The tragedy was caused by navigation errors of the crew, irregularities in the work of the dispatcher, and a failure in the operation of ground radio equipment.
Causes of plane crashes in Russia
Summing up, there are several reasons why, most often, planes crash in Russia:
- insufficient level of training of crew members;
- deterioration of the fleet of airliners used in civil aviation;
- poor aircraft maintenance;
- Act of terrorism.
Three domestic models can be found in the world ranking of the most dangerous aircraft: Il-76, Tu-154, Tu-134. Unfortunately, in a similar rating of the safest aircraft, Russian airliners do not appear.
The situation with aircraft crashes in Russia has hardly changed in 10 years. Our country remains among the leaders in terms of the number of air crashes. Let's hope that domestic airlines will draw the right conclusions from the statistics and will improve the quality of flight training of crews and the technical safety of aircraft.
