Chaika linked the Superjet crash to problems in the aviation industry. One of them is pilot training

The crash of Aeroflot's Sukhoi Superjet 100 on May 5 while landing at Sheremetyevo is a consequence of serious problems in the Russian aviation industry, said Prosecutor General Yuri Chaika at "government hour" in the State Duma. Among the industry's problems, Chaika named the incomplete completion of training programs by flight personnel.

Systemic problems

• The state flight safety program is outdated. It has not been updated for 11 years, does not meet international requirements, and therefore the obligations stipulated by the Convention on International Civil Aviation have not been fulfilled.
• There is no set of rules for certifying aircraft and training personnel. According to Chaika, the Ministry of Transport has not yet developed rules for training pilots and checking their airworthiness, certifying aircraft, and their ground and technical maintenance. The agency has been working on this since 2011.
• Quality of pilot training. During the supervisory inspections that have been conducted since 2017, the Prosecutor General's Office found that flight personnel do not complete their professional training programs in full. Over the past two years, 550 pilots have been suspended and two aviation training centers have been closed.
• Negligence of Rosaviatsiya. Rosaviatsiya controls the activities of airlines formally, Chaika believes. As a result, Russian airlines operate aircraft that do not meet the requirements of the law. The Prosecutor General's Office found more than 400 civil aircraft with changes to the standard design without research and certification work.

Under fire from critics

• On Wednesday, Khabarovsk Krai Governor Sergei Furgal called the "100% human factor" the version of the Superjet crash. He cited a technical report sent to the regional Ministry of Transport (the Superjet is assembled in Komsomolsk-on-Amur). Aeroflot responded that Furgal was putting pressure on the IAC investigation and should issue a refutation.
• The Rosaviatsia document on the circumstances of the disaster contains recommendations for airlines to conduct training with crews on emergency landings and actions in the event of a fire.
• Aeroflot itself criticized the pilot training system in Russia. The airline suggested that the Ministry of Transport change educational standards and bring them into line with modern requirements, without which the problem of pilot shortage cannot be solved. Rossiya and Pobeda airlines requested a quota for foreign pilots.
• Last year, Federation Council Speaker Valentina Matviyenko criticized the Superjet as such. "Nobody buys it abroad. And how much money has been pumped in, do you know how much money has been pumped in?" Matviyenko asked at a meeting with Transport Minister Yevgeny Ditrikh.

Statistics

• In terms of flight safety, Russia lags behind African countries. According to IATA data for 2018, the number of serious flight accidents in the CIS countries for jetliners per 1 million flights was 1.19 - the highest rate in the world.
• Since 2010, there have been 12 crashes of scheduled and charter passenger aircraft in Russia, of which only two were entirely due to technical reasons. The rest were caused by human error.

Context. Aeroflot's Sukhoi Superjet 100, flying from Moscow to Murmansk, made an emergency return to Sheremetyevo Airport after a lightning strike and electronic failure, and made a hard manual landing after 28 minutes of flight. During landing, its landing gear collapsed and its engines caught fire, with the flames quickly spreading to the tail of the fuselage. 41 people died. So far, the leading theory behind the crash is pilot error. However, the Superjet as a type has many of its own problems, which we have examined in detail .