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Aviation History
1994
1994 - 0063.PDF
AIR SAFETY ANALYSIS A SAFE PLACE TO FLY? Recent air crashes in the CIS have again drawn attention to the deteriorating domestic safety standards in the former Soviet Union, following the break-up of Aeroflot. Statistics from the CIS Inter-State Aviation Committee (MAK) show unequivocally that airline passengers in the former Soviet Union are in greater danger of death or in jury from an aircraft crash than are travellers in the other 180 International Civil Aviation Or ganisation (ICAO) states. The reasons are many and complex. In the CIS, one air-traveller death is recorded for every 1.09 million passengers flown: in the "rest of the world" one death occurs for every 1.25 million passengers on average. The difference is spectacular when the CIS is compared with the USA, where one death is registered for every 14.3 mil lion people flown. The fact that more than 40% of the world's non-CIS travel lers are flown by US airlines gives an artificially good pic ture of the traveller's chances when flying outside North America, especially considering that European, Middle-Eastern and Australian airline safety is also excellent. The figures show (see table) that it is clear that safety was at its best in the CIS nations during the years preceding the USSR's final death throes, with 1989 a high point in safety terms. Now standards are dete riorating again. MAK points out that in 1993, however, at least the numbers of fatal air accidents is significantly down on the two previous years (11, compared with 24 and 25). The new year started on a low note with the crash of a Tupolev Tu-154M in Siberia, killing at least 120 people — the worst accident for nine years in the CIS. This came soon after the 26 December crash of an Antonov An-26 in Armenia, which killed 36 peo ple — although only 11 were on the manifest. The Tu-154 loss sparked re newed debate over safety stan dards in the CIS. About 70% of accidents in the commonwealth are attrib- Slanding room only — passengers have used guns to guarantee seats uted to human error, according to MAK. The agency claims that between 1983 and 1992, in fatal accidents involving air craft weighing more than lOt, technical factors accounted for 7.5% of accidents to CIS-built aircraft. The figure for West ern-built types was 9.2%. Flight safety in the CIS pro vokes concern because of the Accident rates in passenger service Fatalities per 1 million persons embarked (crew and passengers) USSR/CIS USA ICAO" 1983 1.61 0.06 1.18 1984 3.01 0.01 0.29 1985 3.6 0.54 1.35 1986 2.4 0.01 0.5 1987 0.16 0.41 0.9 1988 0.6 0.6 0.7 1989 0.3 0.6 1.0 1990 0.62 0.2 0.74 1991 1.26 0.09 0.53 1992 0.92 0.07 0.8 •excluding USSR/CIS Source: CIS Inlet-stale Aviation Committee (MAK) specific political and economic disadvantages prevailing there. The MAK Committee has iden tified the following bad influ ences on safety: • radical political changes in the territory of the former So viet Union, together with deep social and economic crises and the widening of regional nat ionalistic conflicts; • the elimination of the cen tralised system for controlling civil aviation, and the creation of national civil-aviation au thorities in newly independent republics; • the appearance of new inde pendent commercial operators (more than 320 have been reg istered in Russia alone); • increasing wet-leasing of CIS-registered aircraft to third- world countries, using the most experienced crews and best aircraft available. More than 100 aircraft and 800 crews are abroad now, most operating in the Middle East, Africa and Latin America; • cuts in CIS expenditure on air safety and reliability programmes; • shortages of jet fuel; • a slowing rate of purchase of new aircraft. Sometimes political upheaval produces serious cases of air- safety violations: the Investigat ing Committee found 82 bodies on the site of the crashed Yakovlev Yak-40 on 28 August, 1993, in Khorog, Tajikistan. The regional tri-jet usually can accommodate up to 32 passengers. Witnesses have said that the crew was faced by the threat of being shot if they failed to allow on board all those who demanded travel. Economic crisis in the for mer Soviet Union naturally in fluences flight safety. Valery Postnikov, department head at MAK, says: "Safety costs money. Higher safety is worth more money. Today we have what we have, a society which Number of fatal air accidents in Russia 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 5 11 17 18 24 25 11 is in such deep crisis that it cannot afford to spend enough resources to solve this [flight safetyl problem." While most pilots and tech nicians in the CIS are trying to compensate for the faults in the system by hard work, the tragic results of poor morale and heavy drinking also show up in some places. In the past three years, sev eral fatal accidents to Antonov An-2s and other utility types were discovered to have been caused by drunken crews. In July 1992 a drunken operator of a jet-fuel tanker wrongly connected the hoses of his ma chine at Bratsk airport. Because of this, two Tupolev Tu-154s were set on fire and burned out. Eight passengers and a stewardess narrowly escaped from one of them. The situa tion was saved by another drunk who jumped into the burning re-fueller and drove it away from the parking line. Later he died from burns. In his presentation in Prague at last November's Flight Inter national conference on aero space in Eastern Europe, Valentine Sushko, chairman of the MAK aviation register, said: "I refer to the comparison of flight-safety indices which shows that we yield to no-one in this respect." Given this myopia, perhaps the mystery is not why CIS airliners crash from time to time, but why they do not do so more often. BY ALEXANDER VELOV1CH • FLIGHT INTERNATIONAL 12 - 18 January. 1994
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