Flight Exodus: Azimut uncovered massive flight safety violations
Rostransnadzor and Rosaviatsia after the accident with a Superjet 100 that caught fire in Antalya revealed more than 20 violations of Azimut Airlines in the field of flight safety and organization of flight operations, Izvestia has learned. The facts of hiding SSJ-100 landings with increased overload, underestimation of flight shift duration of crews, admission of airplanes to flights without necessary maintenance were found out. There is no control over the completeness and quality of the maintenance performed by the carrier, the report says. And preventive measures conducted by Azimut do not contribute to the exclusion of repeated deviations in piloting. Approximately 12% of all landings in the first 11 months of 2024 were performed with SSJ-100 aircraft bouncing off the runway after touching the landing gear, i.e. goose bumps.
What violations were found at Azimut
Rostransnadzor together with Rosaviatsia completed the inspection of Azimut Airlines after the accident with the Superjet 100 (RA-89085) that caught fire on November 24 in Antalya, Turkey. The inspectors found more than 20 violations in the maintenance of airworthiness of aircraft, organization of flight operations and flight safety management system. In particular, the facts of concealment of SSJ-100 landings with increased overload (there are no records of suspected rough landing on three flights), admission of airplanes without undergoing the necessary maintenance and performance of work with non-certified tools were revealed. This is stated in the inspection report dated December 11, which was read by Izvestia.
In particular, it was found that the airline was negligent in fixing increased overloads, did not enter data on suspicions of a rough landing. On at least six flights the overload was more than 2g with excess vertical speed. In addition, 18 cases of exceeding flight operations manual (FOM) limitations were identified . These included in-flight fuel imbalance of more than 500kg and failure to fix landing gear on the retracted position locks, the document said.
Azimut did not properly carry out preventive measures to organize flight operations. In case of deviations from piloting norms, including repeated separation of the airplane from the runway during landing, the aircraft commanders were given individual tasks with the assignment of methodical flights, but just a few days later the deviations were repeated. At the same time, cases with repeated touchdown of the runway on landing account for about 12% of all landings in the first 11 months of 2024, the act said.
"Izvestia" sent requests to the airline and Rostransnadzor.
- Repeated separation of the airplane from the runway (goading) is a dangerous phenomenon when the airplane starts bouncing on the runway, which is a consequence of piloting errors and sometimes technical malfunction," said Roman Gusarov, editor-in-chief of Avia.ru. - Bouncing can result in increased landing overloads and destruction of the airplane's structure. And if every tenth landing in the airline was performed with bouncing, it indicates problems with pilot training.
Cases of repeated violations that fit the criteria of an unstabilized approach have also been identified. In more than 19 cases, the crews exceeded the allowable vertical descent rate during the final landing phase. Pilots did not leave for the second round even when the Sink Rate (too fast descent) alarm was activated, the document says.
- " As the case of the SSJ-100 in Antalya showed, the combination of slouching and landing gear design features can lead to damage and fire," Andrei Patrakov, founder of the RunAvia flight safety and certification service, told Izvestia. - There is unofficial information about the presence of flaws in the control system of the SSJ-100 airplane. For example, when switching to Direct Mode, there is a delay in the control signal, which when piloting can lead to a goose bump on landing. But so far this and other potential deficiencies have not been officially recognized.
According to the report, the documentation of preventive measures was not properly maintained. The inspectors concluded that the airline's safety management system (SMS) measures were ineffective in limiting and mitigating risks before they lead to incidents and accidents.
The inspection also revealed that Azimut systematically violated the quality system, deliberately ignored the requirements of operational documentation, and failed to monitor the completeness and quality of maintenance performed, as well as the documentation of the results of the work performed. 19 SSJ-100s (the entire fleet) did not have a detailed inspection of the windshield clamping bolts, which should be performed at 500 cycle intervals.
Maintenance was carried out in a short time, for example, maintenance of the left and right landing gear struts on the hydraulic elevator was carried out in 6.5 minutes, which is clearly insufficient for quality work according to the airworthiness directive, the inspection report says. Maintenance of landing gear was carried out on hydraulic elevators, however, recordings from video surveillance cameras did not confirm that there was a detachment from the ground.
A case was detected when the airplane continued to fly without inspection after a rough landing. On July 15, on a flight from Ufa, a rough landing with an overload of 2.42g was allowed at the landing in Astrakhan, but instead of arriving at the base airfield for work, the SSJ-100 performed five more commercial flights. Two more aircraft were found to have more than 10 defects in various parts of the aircraft structure.
In addition, the carrier's aircraft maintenance was carried out with non-certified equipment and tools. Facts of incorrect execution of documents on maintenance work were revealed. In the task cards for routine maintenance work, marks were made on the simultaneous performance of two mutually exclusive actions.
In addition to technical issues, the inspectors found violations in the control of working hours and crew rest. The airline systematically underestimated the duration of a flight shift, which did not include medical examination. In total, at least 17 such facts were established.
- Reduction of flight shifts in the reporting affects the pilots' productivity, - Roman Gusarov noted. - There are norms of labor and rest regime for flight crews, which do not allow overloading pilots. Theoretically, some airlines are able to reduce working hours on paper, although pilots actually fulfill their duties. This increases working hours without violating the monthly flight time limits prescribed by health regulations. Airlines may resort to this scheme when they do not have enough pilots to perform flights.
Rostransnadzor issued Azimut a prescription for each violation. The airline eliminated several violations even before the end of the inspection. As a result of the inspection, the carrier was banned from flying two SSJ-100s (RA-89093 and RA-89179) until the remarks were eliminated. Both airplanes have already returned to operation.
The violations identified by Rostransnadzor specialists with the participation of Rosaviatsia during the inspection of Azimut Airlines concern only the carrier's approach to the operation of Superjet 100 airplanes, Rosaviatsia said. Now the airline is eliminating violations and introducing measures to prevent them in the future. This process is controlled by Rostransnadzor with the participation of Rosaviatsia.
Airplane RA-89085 "Azimut" caught fire
- Russia uses the best practices of control over the maintenance of aircraft. Approaches to control are evolving. For example, new Federal Aviation Regulations (FAP-367 "Part-145") regulating the maintenance of civil aircraft (AC) and aircraft engines will come into force on March 1, 2025. These FAPs improve approaches to the implementation of aircraft maintenance procedures," it added.
Rosaviatsia noted that the inspection did not reveal any non-compliance of the Superjet 100 type design with the norms of airworthiness, there are no questions to the reliability of this type of aircraft.
Airline inspections
When landing an aircraft with parameters within the permissible limits (primarily in terms of vertical and horizontal speed) on a serviceable airplane, its re-separation from the runway should not occur, Oleg Panteleyev, executive director of AviaPort, told Izvestia. The 12% of landings that occur with a goose bump is a clear deviation from the norm, the aviation expert noted.
- A series of airplane crashes and subsequent revocations of airline operators' certificates show that the system reacts post facto," said Andrei Patrakov. - Now we observe a similar phenomenon in the so-called large passenger aviation. Carriers are not motivated to open safety data, which prevents Rosaviatsia from seeing the real picture. This leads to sloppiness in the performance of maintenance and repair.
According to the expert, since 2015, the Russian Federation has not had a mandatory state program for ensuring flight safety according to ICAO (International Civil Aviation Organization) requirements.
- The implementation of ICAO recommendations in the Russian Federation is less than half of the world average, which means that the red flag for the Russian Federation from ICAO is not only for political reasons," he said.
ICAO downgraded the Russian aviation industry to "red" in 2022 after sanctions were imposed and the procedure of double registration of airliners.
- Now a risk-oriented approach to inspections of airlines is used, - said Oleg Panteleyev. - If a carrier has no air accidents and there are no factors indirectly indicating a bad situation (e.g., constant flight delays), no inspections are scheduled. The concealment of information by carriers in some cases leads to the fact that supervisory authorities leave them alone when they should not. As a fact, problems accumulate and inevitably result in air accidents.
How many aviation accidents and events has Azimut had in 2024
This year, as of December 17, Azimut's airplanes were involved in one accident (a crash in Antalya) and at least 24 events, which Rosaviatsia classified as an aviation incident and started their investigation. Moreover, 13 of them occurred in the last three months, according to the closed statistics of Rosaviatsia, analyzed by Izvestia.
75% of the incidents were caused by technical reasons: depressurization/non-hermetization of the aircraft cabin, failure to release or jamming of flaps/spoilers, failure to retract the landing gear, generator failure, drop in the level of hydraulic fluid and clogging of fuel filters on both engines.
In addition, Izvestia has counted about 150 other aviation events registered by Rosaviatsia since the beginning of the year, not qualified as incidents, but nevertheless related to technical failures of SSJ-100. Most of them (122 cases) are the return of airplanes from the engine start point, taxiing route to the runway or directly from the runway to the parking place due to technical reasons, resulting in a delay of departure. Among these reasons are emerging problems with the engine, cabin air conditioning system, fuel system, electrical system, hydraulic system, landing gear strut control and the need to restart on-board computers.
Also this year Azimut's SSJ-100s aborted takeoff 12 times due to technical reasons: engine reverser malfunction, vibration or malfunction of the propulsion system, automatic thrust failure, etc. Another 11 times the carrier's airplanes returned to the departure airfield and three times landed at an alternate airfield.
According to Oleg Panteleev, much of what was noted by the inspectors is correctable, and in the shortest possible time. But the wording that "preventive measures carried out by Azimut do not contribute to the exclusion of repeated deviations in piloting" suggests that serious claims may be made against the specialized specialists of the airline.
A source in the Ministry of Transportation told Izvestia that the airline's flight director may lose his position as a result of the inspection.
