Ilya Karpyuk: Deviling Mac

The federal government is currently discussing the deprivation of the Interstate Aviation Committee (MAC) of the CIS of the authority to conduct investigations of the aircraft operations in the country. Despite the fact that such a step looks quite logical, the termination of agreements can entail unpleasant consequences.

In June, Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich instructed to work out the transfer of powers of the MAC CIS to investigate aviation accidents to Russian bodies, the newspaper Kommersant writes with reference to SOI sources. At the same time, Russia may withdraw from agreements on civil aviation and the use of airspace concluded in the CIS in 1991, as well as on the conditions of Mac's stay in the country, which was signed in 1995.

Tatyana Anodin. Photo: Premier.gov.ru

It is characteristic that Russia began to abandon the services of the MAC at the end of last year, when Dmitry Medvedev ordered to transfer the functions to the domestic departments to certify aircraft and their details. Then, recall, the Mac was suspected of a conflict of interests: since 1991, the organization is headed by Tatyana Anodin, the mother of the largest shareholder of Transaero at that time, Alexander Pleshakov. At that moment, Transaero was actually in a state of bankruptcy, and the Mac, as if in revenge, banned the operation of one of the most popular aircraft models in the country - Boeing 737. Then the problem was resolved, but the relevant powers were seized.

Alexander and Olga Pleshakov on the 20th anniversary of Transaero. Photo: Teperikova

True, the problem of personnel deficiency arose, due to which, already in April, the head of the Federal Air Transport Agency, Alexander Neudko, proposed a meeting to attract the personnel of the Aviation Register of the IAC to certification. But in the Macs, this initiative was regarded as “destabilizing”.

It objects to the exit from agreements with the CIS countries and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. On Smolenskaya Square, they are sure that the denunciation of the CIS aircraft can be regarded as “Russia's disinterest in regional cooperation in the field of civil aviation”. As the Message, which the Foreign Ministry sent to the Ministry of Transport, is, first of all, it is necessary to create a similar independent national structure, and only then to recall the powers of the poppy.

At the same time, in accordance with the regulatory air transportation of the Chicago Convention, which comes into force at the end of the year, the structure responsible for the investigation should be accountable to the parliament or the government, but at the same time be “beyond the scope of aviation departments”. The latter fact does not allow to transfer the functions of the MAC to the Center for Ensuring the Investigation of Air Protection under the Ministry of Defense.

The collapse of the Polish Tu-154 near Smolensk. 2010. Photo: cc by-sa 2.5

At the same time, the MAC is the only structure in Europe that investigates aircraft production in several states, in other countries, including not too large ones, there are their national agencies and services.

Infomost, the head of Boris Rybak, in his commentary to Kommersant, indicated that the creation of a national structure from scratch would require significant temporary and material costs, and also generate diplomatic problems. He recalled that the interstate aviation committee inherited all the resources from his predecessor - the USSR Gosavaadzor.