To get on the stop list: Angara may have its maintenance certificate revoked

The certificate of the aircraft maintenance organization may be revoked from Angara Airlines, this issue will be resolved at a meeting with the Federal Air Transport Agency on July 28, Izvestia found out. The fate of the airline was supposed to be decided on July 24, but the meeting was postponed due to the An-24 plane crash that crashed in the Amur region. Rosaviation and Rostransnadzor will also check the carrier's activities for compliance with federal aviation regulations. Angara is part of Eastland Holding, which belongs to the ex-governor of the Irkutsk Region, Sergei Eroshchenko, as well as Angara-Service, which sold tickets to passengers of the crashed flight. What other assets are included in the pool of the ex-governor and what awaits the Angara airline? — in the Izvestia article.

Questions for Angara

A meeting will be held at the Federal Air Transport Agency on July 28, 2025, at which a decision may be made to revoke the maintenance organization certificate from Angara Airlines. A source close to the Ministry of Transport told Izvestia about this. The document gives the right to carry out THAT is indefinite and valid until the day of suspension or cancellation.

The reason for the questions to the airline was the recent Rostransnadzor inspections, which revealed a number of violations at Angara. A meeting in the Federal Air Transport Agency on this topic was supposed to be held on July 24, but it was postponed due to the plane crash. On this day, AN AN-24 belonging to the Angara Park crashed 32 km from the town of Tynda in the Amur region. 48 people were killed, six of whom were crew members.

Rostransnadzor checked Angara from June 24, 2025 to July 8. The reason then was an incident with one of the airline's aircraft: Another AN-24 was involved in an accident at Kirensk airport in the Irkutsk region. On May 26 of this year, the landing gear of the aircraft broke during landing, and it rolled off the runway, ramming its nose. None of the passengers were injured.

During the inspection, it turned out that aircraft maintenance in the Hangar was often carried out without compliance with technology and airworthiness directives, and the personnel involved did not have the appropriate training, according to the Rosaviation document.

As a result, eight vessels were suspended from operation, and four engineering and technical personnel were suspended from maintenance work, according to a letter from Alexander Prokhodtsev, Deputy head of the Federal Air Transport Agency, to Vladimir Zabolotsky, Managing Director of Angara.

In addition, the inspectors had questions about the maintenance of the Mi-8AMT helicopters. During one such event, the outfit card was issued by an employee who, according to the time table, had a day off. Also, during the inspection of the Mi-8T, the inspectors found dents on the outboard fuel tanks over 4 mm, damage to the braid of the harnesses under the hood, violations of the sealing of the co-pilot's window, oil stains on the air filter, the backlash of the automatic skewer and other technical flaws.

The conclusion reached by the inspectors was that the airline's officials did not monitor the completeness and quality of maintenance of aircraft and helicopters, did not ensure control over the preparation of operational documentation and storage of equipment and tools.

These and other violations may result in the cancellation of the aircraft maintenance organization's certificate. At the meeting, representatives of the airline should present a plan to eliminate them, report on the causes and measures to prevent such incidents in the future.

In addition to the checks already carried out, the airline is waiting for new ones. After the crash of the An-24 aircraft, Rosaviation, together with Rostransnadzor, initiates an inspection of Angara's activities for compliance with Federal Aviation Regulations, the press service of the Ministry of Transport reported. Then the issue of further work of the carrier will be resolved.

Izvestia sent a request to the Federal Air Transport Agency and Angara Airlines.

Who owns Angara

The Angara airline is part of the Eastland holding, the beneficiary of which is the ex—governor of the Irkutsk Region Sergey Eroshchenko, Izvestia found out.

According to the Rusprofile database, he is now the founder of Eastland with 75% of the company's shares. Another 15% of the shares are held by his brother Vladimir Yeroshchenko, who also holds the position of head of the company.

Eastland Group of Companies is the largest diversified holding company in Eastern Siberia, whose assets include shipbuilding, shipping, aviation and aircraft repair, hotel and restaurant business, as well as recreational tourism, according to the holding's official website. It also says that the company "develops mass tourism on Lake Baikal and forms a high-quality infrastructure of the region."

The holding's enterprises include the East Siberian River Shipping Company, the Baikal Hotel in the village of Listvyanka, Irkutsk Aircraft Repair Plant No. 403, the First Beauty and Health Club and about a dozen other assets. In addition, it includes the Angara-Service company, which sells tickets for the airline's planes, including the An-24 that crashed in the Amur region.

The beneficiaries of Angara-Service, according to the Rusprofile database, are also Sergey and Vladimir Eroshchenko. As follows from the SPARK database, the company is profitable, its net profit by the end of 2024 amounted to 39.1 million rubles.

As for the Angara airline, Sergey Eroshchenko, judging by the documents, does not directly disclose his involvement in it: there is no information about the founders of the airline in the SPARK and Rusprofile databases.

At the same time, a separate page is dedicated to Angara on the official website of Eastland Holding. In addition, information about the airline is reflected on the page dedicated to the history of Eastland. In particular, it is reported that Angara appeared in 2000 and began operating on leased aircraft.

"The company now has 11 An-24 aircraft (one in VIP configuration), 15 Mi-8 helicopters of various modifications (two of them in VIP configuration)," Eastland's website says.

In 2023, according to the authors of the website, the Angara fleet expanded — a new Mi-8 AMT helicopter was purchased. And in 2025, Angara opened a branch in Bratsk.

The airline has been operating in the air transportation market since 2005, according to the Rusprofile database. The company is based in Irkutsk and has two offices (the second is located in Buryatia).

In 2024, the company's revenue amounted to 4.67 billion rubles, but net profit decreased by 44% to 300 million rubles. The number of employees has also decreased, from 701 in 2018 to 555 in 2024.

The company's profitability was 6%, which is higher than the industry average. In 2024, Angara ranked second in the Irkutsk Region and 31st in Russia in terms of revenue.

Sergey Eroshchenko took over the post of governor of the Irkutsk region on May 29, 2012 after the resignation of the head of the region Dmitry Mezentsev. But Eroshchenko could not stay for a second term — in September 2015, he lost in the second round of elections to the candidate from the Communist Party of the Russian Federation Sergey Levchenko.

The former governor of the Irkutsk Region filed his last income declaration as an official in 2015. According to the document, Sergei Eroshchenko's income for 2014 amounted to 6.1 million rubles, and his wife's income was 1.3 million rubles.

On July 25, Angara Airlines posted a message on its website expressing its condolences to the families of the deceased passengers.

"Supporting the families of the victims and helping them overcome this difficult period is our priority. The Airline undertakes to do everything possible to clarify the circumstances of the incident and to prevent similar tragedies in the future. The memory of the victims will live on in the hearts of relatives and friends, in the history of the airline and in the annals of aviation," the message says.

Izvestia tried to contact Sergey and Vladimir Yeroshchenko, but they did not respond to calls.

What does certificate revocation mean?

In addition to passenger transportation, some airlines also perform aircraft maintenance functions. Revocation of the certificate means prohibiting the repair of aircraft on their own, the editor-in-chief of the portal told Izvestia. Avia.ru Roman Gusarov. In this case, the carrier will have to use the services of another repair company. And now there are enough enterprises on the market capable of carrying out work to maintain the airworthiness of aircraft.

— It's much worse when an airline's operator's certificate is revoked. This means that she will be banned from flying, which results in her closure," said Roman Gusarov. — It is impractical to prohibit the operation of AN-24 aircraft. There is nothing to replace them yet, and when the An-24 fleet is put on hold, inter-regional air transportation in the east of Russia will actually stop.

Many places in the Angara region, Buryatia, Transbaikalia and Siberia in general can only be reached by plane. There are no roads or railway branches there. And besides the AN-24, there is nothing to operate on regional routes.

—Foreign cars are not suitable for use in a northern climate," the expert noted. — There are practically no airplanes in the world that can withstand 50-degree frosts and do not require warm hangars.

In addition, it is impossible to build concrete landing strips on permafrost. They use unpaved ones. And only adapted airplanes that are not afraid of dirt can land on them. The AN-24 is a unique aircraft in this regard, even if it is old, Roman Gusarov noted.

— In general, 50-year-old An-24s can fly for a long time with constant maintenance of airworthiness and repair. However, in addition to the obsolescence of the real, there is also a moral obsolescence," Andrei Litvinov, an aviation expert and civil aviation pilot, told Izvestia.

The culture of service and operation has already changed. There are fewer and fewer specialists capable of flying and servicing such equipment in the old-fashioned way, so it is already difficult to operate cars from the 1970s without violations, the expert noted.