Air travel in Russia is getting safer, say Russian authorities. What's more - according to official statistics, 2024 may even turn out to be the safest for the last ten years. But how is this possible against the backdrop of Western sanctions against Russia and a growing passenger flow?
Official data may be incomplete
From the published data of the Federal Air Transport Agency Rosaviatsia on the aviation accidents in the first half of 2024, it appears that they were twice as few as in 2023 - 67 against 114. And the general trend was towards an annual decrease of the plane accidents.
However, as DV found, not all technical problems fall into the official statistics - 20 important reports of technical irregularities in aircraft are missing from it. In April, for example, Rosaviatsia registered 15 aviation incidents, while the Telegram channel Avianincident (specializing in aviation incidents in Russia) detailed at least 70 such cases, some of which were related to the return of the machine to the departure airport or suspension from flights. This information is also confirmed by other portals that track flights, as well as data in the media.
Rosaviatsia has not reported an air accident with the death of a passenger
For example, on April 6, the Aeroflot airline had to postpone a Perm-Moscow flight due to a problem with the ailerons, but this information is missing from the statistics. Another serious technical incident with an airplane in Anadyr was also not noted.
However, even the case in which one of the passengers of Aeroflot, who was supposed to fly from Thailand, died on March 26 due to a defect in the plane. A technical malfunction caused the plane to remain at the airport for two hours until the problem was fixed. During this time, the passengers were without air conditioning, one of them felt ill, probably because he had an arrhythmia. He was hospitalized, but fell into a coma in the hospital, and died three days later. A criminal case was filed in connection with the death of the passenger, but Rosaviatsia never saw any signs of an aviation accident in the case.
The number of plane accidents may be twice as high
The head of Rosaviatsia, Dmitry Yandrov, points out that Russian aviation has become even safer than before the sanctions - in 2023, the number of aviation incidents in Russia decreased by 25 percent compared to 2021, i.e. before the imposition of sanctions.
But cases of technical problems on planes may be twice as many. According to the Wall Street Journal, which cites data from the company Cirium, which collects data on airplane flights, air accidents have increased several times. These data indicate that in 2023 in Russia for every 100,000 departures there were 9.9 incidents related to aviation security. This is twice as much as in 2022 and 2019, when the same indicator was 5 and 4.5, respectively. This conclusion was also reached by Newsweek, which in its research found a three-fold increase in malfunctions of Russian aircraft from September to December 2023 compared to the same period in 2022.
Rosaviation can be guided by a special instruction
It is possible that in its reports, Rosaviatsia is guided by the instructions of the ADREP system, which does not recognize all technical problems for an incident, aviation expert Alexander Lanecki told DV.
„ Probably, Rosaviatsia has information for all cases, but does not disclose it. Therefore, only one part remains in the incident report, and it looks good visually. I think that technical failures have become more, and serious incidents and accidents - less. That is, thank God, many fewer people die than in some past years," Lanecki says.
The expert links the number of technical problems on Russian planes to the effect of sanctions, which the Russian aviation industry compensates with illegal imports. He estimates that $2-3 billion worth of spare parts are bought this way. Lanekci adds that up to 90 percent of the spare parts on the illegal market are from planes that are no longer in service and are being dismantled. “This is a normal practice all over the world," says the expert.
DV's check reveals that a certain amount of spare parts is delivered through the United Arab Emirates, and their price for Russia is two or three times higher than the market price. According to data from the German Institute for Economic Research ifo, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Turkey also offer help to Russia to circumvent the sanctions.
* In the processing of the information by Rosaviatsia, the Department of State for Data Verification was also involved.
Author: Alexey Strelnikov