RuAviation

Following the incident with the Superjet 100 (RA-89085) in Antalya on 24 November 2024, Rostransnadzor and Rosaviatsia conducted an inspection of Azimut Airlines. The inspection found more than 20 violations concerning the maintenance of aircraft airworthiness, organisation of flight operations and flight safety management system.

The facts of deliberate concealment of information about SSJ100 landings with exceeded permissible loads were recorded. The inspection showed that there were no records of suspected rough landings on at least three flights, and on six flights the load when the landing gear touched the runway surface was more than 2g (the calculated overload for the type is 3.75g) with simultaneous exceeding of vertical speed. Approximately 12 per cent of all landings in the first 11 months of 2024 were performed with aircraft bouncing off the runway.

There were also 18 cases of deviations from the flight operations manual, including fuel imbalance in flight exceeding 500kg and cases of the landing gear not being locked in the retracted position. The facts were revealed that the aircraft were allowed to fly without undergoing the necessary maintenance and work with non-certified tools, according to the act of Rostransnadzor and Rosaviatsia on the results of the inspection on 11 December.

The high percentage of bounced landing points to a systemic problem related to pilot training.

‘Aircraft commanders in case of deviations from piloting norms, including repeated separation of the aircraft from the runway during landing, were given individual tasks with the assignment of methodical flights, but just a few days later deviations were repeated,’ the act says.

Azimut is the only airline, the fleet of which are only aircraft Superjet 100, a total of 19 aircraft of this type in the fleet of the carrier. The identified violations call into question the effectiveness of the existing control and supervision procedures in the airline. Azimut’s preventive measures are recognised as insufficient.