The Yak-40 was a reliable car
The passenger Yak-40 that crashed at Sheremetyevo airport yesterday is one of the legendary Soviet aircraft. Being the absolute record holder for the number of jet passenger aircraft produced by the aviation industry (1011 copies), the Yak-40 has never suffered a disaster due to technical malfunctions.

The Yak-40 is the first passenger aircraft of the Design Bureau named after. Yakovlev (now Yak Aviation Corporation). Its development began in 1965 - the new aircraft was supposed to replace the outdated propeller-driven Li-2 (licensed version of the American Douglas DC-3), Il-12 and Il-14. The Yak-40 became the world's first jet aircraft for local airlines. Its maximum take-off weight is 16.1 tons, cruising speed is 530 km/h, number of passenger seats is 24-32, flight range is 1350 km. When designing the Yak-40, the Design Bureau included an excess safety margin in its design and adapted the aircraft for flights from unpaved airfields. The Yak-40 was the simplest machine possible, designed for ground and flight personnel of average qualification (it was nicknamed the iron cigarette butt for its strength, and the kerosene fighter because of its high fuel consumption).
The aircraft was produced from 1968 to 1981 at the Saratov Aviation Plant. A total of 1011 vehicles were produced, 125 of which were exported. In addition to the serial aircraft, the plant also produced an “administrative” aircraft with 11-14 seats, an airborne transport and ambulance aircraft (Yak-40DTS), a meteorological laboratory (Yak-40 “Aqua”, “Liros” and “Meteo”), a machine for testing avionics (Yak -40REO) and a cargo-passenger version (Yak-40K).
Before yesterday's disaster, 13 cars were lost, but none of them crashed due to technical faults - almost all of them died in "hot spots". The Yak-40 was widely used in Afghanistan and by UN forces in Africa. There are currently about 180 Yak-40s flying in Russia. Most of them are converted to transport VIP passengers. Such aircraft serve senior managers of Gazprom, LUKOIL, YUKOS and AvtoVAZ.
The Yak-40 that crashed at Sheremetyevo belonged to the Vologda air squad. It was rented by the Aerotex company, which has been engaged in VIP air transportation for three years. By the way, the dead flight attendants are the daughter of the president of Aerotex and the wife of the vice president of this company. Pre-flight maintenance of the aircraft was carried out by specialists from the Vologda aviation squad, as well as the service of the Sheremetyevo business terminal, owned by LUKOIL. Departures of “business jets” for Sheremetyevo are an ordinary occurrence. Like regular airplanes, they are “guided” by airport dispatchers. A separate specialist is responsible for each stage of the flight - taxi, launch and approach controllers. At the moment the Yak-40 fell, it was being “guided” by the launch and approach controllers. Sheremetyevo is considered one of the safest airports - the last disaster here occurred 25 years ago, when an Il-62 crashed on takeoff due to failures in the engine control system.

LEONID ZAVARSKY

Newspaper "Kommersant" No. 40 dated March 10, 2000, p. 3

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Plane crashes