Russia’s aviation authority says it has begun a “partial decoding” of the flight recorders from the Angara Airlines An-24 passenger plane that crashed in the country’s Far East on July 24. The plane went down near the town of Tynda in the Amur region, killing all 48 people on board — six crew members and 42 passengers, including seven children. While the official investigation is ongoing, the deadly crash has raised serious questions about the state of Russia’s aging aviation fleet, which is now in its fourth year under heavy sanctions. To learn more about the An-24 crash, the effects of international isolation, and whether flying in Russia has, in fact, become more dangerous, Meduza spoke with an independent aviation expert.

— What can you say about the likely cause of the plane crash, based on what we know so far?

— The plane was flying the Khabarovsk–Blagoveshchensk–Tynda route. There’s a video going around [online] right now of two women who got off during the stopover in Blagoveshchensk — so we know the flight made it there without issue, and the trouble began [as it approached] Tynda. We now understand that the weather conditions were poor there, which is likely why [the pilot] couldn’t land on the first attempt.

I’ve flown on an An-24 many times over the years [as a passenger], and I’ve had to land in fog before. The plane makes two landing attempts. If it can’t land the second time, it typically turns around and heads back. Watching that from a window seat is pretty nerve-wracking — the pilot dives into the fog, navigating roughly, then starts descending to try to spot the ground. You’re flying through thick fog, then suddenly — bam — you’re right over the treetops, and the runway is about 50 meters [about 55 yards] off to the side. In other words, he missed. So the pilot slams the throttle, pulls up the landing gear, and goes around for another attempt.

The An-24 is a plane from the 1960s. It’s not equipped with modern bells and whistles, which is why the skill level of pilots flying small regional routes is actually much higher than [the national average]. The An-24’s onboard systems don’t include a single computer — unless the pilot brings along something like a navigation tablet. For comparison, an Airbus A320 has dozens of computers handling navigation, autopilot, and even semi-automated landings. But the An-24 has no computers because they simply didn’t exist in the 1960s and ’70s — and these planes are still flying the same way they did 50 years ago.

— So the An-24s haven’t been modernized in all that time?

— There’s no point. On a modern aircraft, one computer can be swapped for another. But the An-24’s control systems [weren’t designed for that]. It’s like hauling potatoes to market on a horse — where are you supposed to install a computer? It’s the same idea here.

What’s more, small regional airfields — like in Siberia and [Russia’s] Far East — have weak air navigation infrastructure, and they’re often surrounded by hills. I haven’t been to Tynda myself, but from what I understand, it’s the same there: hills all around. The plane went down about 15 kilometers [about nine miles] from the airfield, and it took around two hours to find the crash site. And when they did locate it, the helicopter couldn’t land because of the rough terrain — it just filmed the area from above, marked the coordinates on a map, and then people had to reach the site by other means.

Of course, the An-24 is supposed to have GPS or GLONASS — some kind of global positioning system. But that doesn’t help much on its own. Sure, you know your coordinates — but so what? If you’re riding a bike through the forest and you know exactly where you are, but visibility is poor, you’re still going to run into a tree. Coordinates are useful when you’re flying high, reading a map, and figuring out your direction. But once you start maneuvering near an airport at low altitude, especially in difficult terrain, that’s when the trouble starts.

In the video shot from the ground — the one showing the plane going around for a second landing attempt — you can see it’s flying low, just a few hundred meters up, below the cloud layer. Most likely, as it tried to circle back, it clipped a hillside or a fir tree.

— Media reports say that shortly before the crash, Russia’s transportation watchdog, Rostransnadzor, inspected Angara Airlines and found several violations. Following the inspection, eight aircraft were grounded, but the airline was allowed to continue operating. Was this an exceptional case, or is this kind of thing common in Russian aviation now?

— Yes, that inspection uncovered serious maintenance violations, and there was talk that Angara’s certificate for aircraft maintenance operations might be revoked. And we’re talking, I should note, about substandard maintenance on very old aircraft — equipment that requires the closest possible attention from airline technicians. So not only had the planes and helicopters in use already exceeded their service life, but the maintenance itself was sloppy, full of violations and falsified records.

Judging by what we know, this crash doesn’t appear to have been caused by a direct technical failure. But the state of civil aviation in Russia today is such that every inspection finds violations. Every single one.

— Why is that?

— Because [the industry] is a shit show. After anti-Russian sanctions were introduced, leasing companies demanded hundreds of their planes back — and we essentially stole them. In response, those companies revoked the airworthiness certificates for all of those aircraft. Then Putin signed a decree allowing Russia to issue its own airworthiness certificates for foreign aircraft, and those planes started flying under dual registration.

By the end of 2022, we were slapped with a red flag by the ICAO [International Civil Aviation Organization] — the result of an international flight safety audit. Out of 187 ICAO member states, only Bhutan and Russia had red flags at that point. Russia still does — and now we’re in the same category as Ecuador, [the Democratic Republic of] the Congo, Liberia, and Zimbabwe.

When spare parts became a problem in 2022, airlines initially turned to aviation cannibalism — grounding one or two planes to strip them for parts so the others could keep flying. Later, they set up gray market supply chains for parts. [Russia’s Federal Air Transport Agency] Rosaviatsiya, the agency responsible for flight safety and for making sure counterfeit parts never make it into circulation, began relaxing its oversight — because if we followed all the regulations, we’d have to stop flying. But these concessions come at the cost of safety.

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And when we’re talking about the An-24 — a plane that’s 50 years old — where are you supposed to get original spare parts? Are they even still being made? These aircraft, including the one that crashed, were mostly built in Kyiv. Some were produced in Ulan-Ude and Irkutsk. But the production facilities that made parts for these planes have long since disappeared. I’m curious myself where they’re getting them from.

— How safe is it to fly on an aircraft that’s nearly 50 years old and whose spare parts come from who knows where?

— The An-24, and its cargo version, the An-26, are solid aircraft — rugged and reliable. But there are many reasons they should have been retired long ago. First, we now have more modern [aircraft]. Second, even if you replace the engine, landing gear, or other components, the airframe itself ages — the metal fatigues over time. The question of replacing these planes has been on the table for at about five years now, and over the past two or three, it’s become especially [urgent].

They should have been phased out, but if you do that, there’s nothing left to fly. In Siberia, the Far East, and Kamchatka, there aren’t any proper roads. Thankfully, there’s a railway connecting Tynda, Blagoveshchensk, and Khabarovsk — but going from Khabarovsk to Tynda by train takes about two days, while by air it’s only four hours. In some areas, planes or helicopters are the only way to reach the outside world.

Take Tyumen, for example — gas workers are flown out to remote fields and mining sites exclusively by helicopter. There are hardly any large airfields out there, so the entire regional fleet is mostly made up of An-2s, An-24s, the An-26 cargo version, and Mi-8 helicopters. Just last week, a Mi-8 went down in Okhotsk — same story: poor visibility.

— Why these planes specifically?

— It’s crucial that the aircraft be propeller-driven. First, turboprop planes can land on dirt runways, not just paved ones — they’re less vulnerable to dust, rocks, and sand. And half of [Russia’s] regional airfields, if not most, are dirt strips — you just level out a patch of land and off you go. For example, in Okhotsk, a town of 3,000 people, the airfield is basically just a clearing. Second, these planes can take off and land on very short runways, because propellers provide effective braking.

In the same class you’ve got Bombardier and Embraer — Canadian and Brazilian aircraft — but they’re jets. And jets come with a major limitation: they can’t land on dirt airstrips because they have two engines mounted under the wings. [Those engines] are basically big tubes that suck in air as the plane taxis — and along with it, any debris on the runway. That debris gets sucked into the engine, and that’s the end of it. In Europe, where even the smallest airfields are paved and clean, you can get away with jet engines. But here, you can’t.

So airlines turn to Rosaviatsiya to extend the permitted service life of the An-24. Technically, that extension can only be granted with the approval of the aircraft’s original designer. That is, the designer determines how long the aircraft should be in operation — say, 30,000 flight hours or 10,000 takeoff–landing cycles. But the An-24 and An-26 were designed by the Antonov Design Bureau in Ukraine, which, for well-known reasons, has completely severed ties with Russia. So when Rosaviatsiya arbitrarily decides to extend those certificates [without the designer’s approval], that’s not exactly ideal.

Nevertheless, [Rosaviatsiya] has extended the An-24’s service life to 2036 — another ten years.

— And there’s no replacement for them yet?

— There’s nothing to replace them with. That’s why Rosaviatsiya is saying, “Guys, let’s keep flying for another ten years.” In practice, the service life of the roughly 50 An-24s [still in operation] has been extended by a decade — but I seriously doubt all 50 will still be flying ten years from now. Some will be grounded, some will suffer failures that can’t be repaired. Essentially, they’re now operating based on condition — flying as long as they can, until a replacement comes along.

They’re developing the Baikal to replace the An-2, but that plane still doesn’t exist. There’s also the Soviet-designed IL-114-300, which has been outfitted with new engines and onboard systems and is currently undergoing certification to be rolled out to regional carriers as a replacement for the An-24. Supposedly, the certificate will come through next year.

But to replace the An-24, they’d need to build at least one plane a week — then you can get 50 aircraft in a year. And that’s not going to happen, because ramping up full-scale production of a new aircraft is no less difficult than designing one from scratch.

— If there hadn’t been a war — and sanctions as a result — would Russian airlines have been able to find a replacement?

— For this class of aircraft? Absolutely. There are plenty of foreign alternatives. The Czech-made L-410, for example — some [Russian regional carriers] are still flying it. In fact, there are far more small aircraft in the world than large ones, simply because they’re easier to operate. The ATR 42-500 and ATR 72-212A are also great planes, but no one’s going to sell us new ones.

What’s more, if you’ve got 40 aircraft of the same type, it’s much easier — you can ground five of them and use them for spare parts. But if you only have two of a kind, and you need a part — what are you supposed to do? The fewer aircraft of a given type you have, or the more types you’re juggling in your fleet, the harder it gets — each model needs its own tools, its own spare parts.

Of course, if there were no sanctions, we’d be in great shape. But now, for example, China has offered to replace our An-24s and An-26s with their own aircraft — the Xi’an MA60 and MA600. These are essentially Chinese versions of the same [Antonov designs], built under license transferred from the Soviet Union back in the day. But unlike ours, they’re still in production — and constantly being upgraded. A bit of cruel irony.

We usually do the talking at fundraisers. This time, we’ll let our readers speak for us. “For years, Meduza’s been one of the only news outlets keeping me from going nuts. I’m still in Russia, still holding it together, but just barely. I know I’m not the only one. So, please show some love for Meduza and help keep us from going cuckoo!” — Lyu