Thread by @ChrisO_wiki

1/ With aviation supplies and maintenance services in short supply, Russian airlines now depend on questionable suppliers in the Middle East and Asia. Some airlines are said to be avoiding recording malfunctions in aircraft logbooks so that they can keep faulty planes flying. ⬇️

2/ I've previously highlighted how Western sanctions are preventing authorised maintenance and the import of spare parts for Russian civilian aircraft, resulting in serious issues for their safety and reliability.

https://twitter.com/ChrisO_wiki/status/1653313927751532544

3/ The independent Russian media outlet Project reports on the wider picture of the Russian aviation industry's problems. The Russian government has spent billions of dollars supporting it. Hundreds of millions are being lost due to foreign airlines no longer flying over Russia.

4/ Many of Russia's civilian aircraft have been 'stolen' from their lessors and can no longer be flown to many countries for fear of confiscation. Aeroflot is now flying its Airbuses to Russia's ally Iran for maintenance. However, this raises many questions over air safety.

5/ As Project notes, Iran has the worst air safety record in the Middle East and has been unable to obtain aircraft parts legitimately for years due to sanctions. The biggest problem comes with the types of maintenance checks that need to be performed.

6/ The most rigorous checks are the type C and D checks (see the Wikipedia article below for a summary). Type D in particular requires virtually the entire aircraft to be dismantled and reassembled every 6-10 years.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aircraft_…

7/ These are presenting major problems for Russia, which had about 170 aircraft due to undergo type C maintenance in 2022 (and 159 aircraft in 2023) and 55 due for type D in 2022 (85 in 2023). The country does not have the ability to do such maintenance itself.

8/ Russia lacks hangar space, repair shops, components and equipment as well as trained specialists. "It's not trivial filters and rubber gaskets, which are not produced in Russia either, sometimes we have to bring them in our personal luggage," says a Russian specialist.

9/ Western manufacturers have also stopped technical support for Russian airlines. As the maintenance specialist notes: "Our aircraft no longer conform to the current technical status required by the manufacturer as a fit-for-purpose airplane.

10/ If one considers non-compliance with the manufacturer's airworthiness requirements to be an unsafe condition, then we are already in it. Despite any cheerful assurances from above."

The impact of sanctions can be seen from the collapse in Russian aviation component imports.

11/ Project notes that in March-August 2021, Aeroflot imported at least $430 million worth of parts. In the same period of 2022, Aeroflot, S7 Airlines, Pobeda, Rossiya, and Ural Airlines combined were only able to import around $44 million worth – a 90% drop.

12/ French, German and US suppliers have been replaced by suppliers from China, the United Arab Emirates, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. Spare parts are being obtained by cannibalising Russian aircraft and purchasing used parts stripped from foreign planes.

13/ At least 11.4% of Aeroflot, S7 Airlines, Pobeda, Rossiya, Ural Airlines, UTair, Nordwind and other airlines' combined fleet – representing hundreds of aircraft – may have been cannibalised, according to a data analysis by Project.

14/ As Project notes, "spare parts removed around the world and imported in circumvention of sanctions, as well as parts removed from aircraft in Russia and serviced there, are fraught with risks that have yet to be assessed".

15/ Adding to the risk, the Russian government has "significantly expanded the number of countries whose parts acceptance certificates are now accepted. The new list includes China, Iran, the United Arab Emirates, India, Uzbekistan, Egypt, South Africa, and others."

16/ Airlines have reportedly adapted to the new situation by deliberately not recording malfunctions, so that their aircraft can keep flying. They are said to be desperate to avoid their aircraft being grounded, particularly if they are outside Russia.

17/ A senior Aeroflot flight attendant says: "When the flights started having problems and the supply of spare parts was interrupted, there was ... a mass mailing to all senior flight attendants, which said that any breakdown you encounter during the flight, you do not enter in…

18/ … the Cabin Log Book, but verbally tell [the managers] what and where is wrong. Accordingly, if there was no spare part and in order not get stuck on the ground, the aircraft could fly away with a malfunction, including a fairly serious one."

19/ Such malfunctions have included an Aeroflot aircraft which flew from the UAE to Moscow in 2022 without a full set of oxygen cylinders to deal with depressurisation or for emergency medical care on board. The pilot did not want to report it and cause a delay.

20/ In another incident, a vacuum generator used to flush an aircraft's toilets was broken for 6 months, meaning that they couldn't be flushed at any altitude below 5,000 m (16,400 ft). Sewage remained on board, unflushed, when the plane was on the ground.

21/ Serious technical faults are also reportedly being kept off the Technical Log Book. In January 2023, a Nordwing Boeing 737 on the ground at Kazan airport with 190 passengers on board was filmed with fuel pouring from its engines.

22/ According to a former Nordwind pilot, "this had already happened several times with this aircraft, but not a single entry was made in the TLB about this - the airline administration asked [the engineers] not to write anything."

23/ Russian airlines have also changed their approach to their Minimum Equipment Lists. This lists the inoperative equipment that an aircraft can have before making a flight. It is a way to ensure that the remaining pieces of equipment are operational and to postpone maintenance.

24/ However, as Project reports, "the war and sanctions have made dramatic changes to the process."

25/ "Project has in its possession an internal document from Aeroflot's flight and maintenance department, which says that due to delays in the supply of spare parts, changes to MEL are being made "more often than before".

26/ "In other words, this means that Aeroflot is increasing with each revision the time period during which an aircraft is allowed to fly with faults on board." /end

Source:
proekt.media/narrative/ross…