Another twofer one

Note that Russian airplane crash in Ukraine reawakens concerns for "former
Soviet Union" airline safety while crash in Kentucky does not awaken
concerns for American, present or former, airline safety.

Hap

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The New York Times

August 23, 2006
Russian Jet Crash in Ukraine Kills 169; Many Are Young
By STEVEN LEE MYERS

MOSCOW, Aug. 22 - A Russian airliner flying from a Black Sea resort to St.
Petersburg crashed in Ukraine on Tuesday, killing all 169 people aboard,
officials said.

It was the third major aviation disaster in or near Russia in less than four
months, reviving concerns about air safety in the former Soviet Union.

The aircraft, a Tupolev 154 operated by Pulkovo Airlines, one of Russia's
largest carriers, sent a distress signal as it flew north from Anapa, a
Russian port on the Black Sea that is a popular tourist destination,
officials said in interviews and in remarks to Russian and Ukrainian news
agencies.

At least 39 of those aboard were children or teenagers, evidently returning
from end-of-summer beach holidays, Irina Andriyanova, a spokeswoman for the
Emergency Services Ministry, said in a telephone interview.

Of the 169 people aboard, she said, 10 were crew members and the rest
passengers.

Other officials cited slightly different figures, confusing the exact toll.

The cause was not immediately clear, though officials in Ukraine and Russia
agreed that it was not a terrorist attack, like the twin suicide bombings
that destroyed two Russian airliners simultaneously in August 2004, killing
90 people.

The officials said the TU-154 was flying through stormy weather with heavy
rain and strong wind when it disappeared from air traffic control radar and
crashed at 2:30 p.m. in an unpopulated area north of Donetsk, in eastern
Ukraine.

President Vladimir V. Putin ordered a commission to investigate, though it
was not clear whether that investigation would extend beyond the sort
routinely carried out after any air disaster. The Prosecutor General's
Office later announced a criminal investigation into whether the airline or
the airplane's crew had violated safety rules.

Ukraine's emergency service officials reported that a fire had broken out
aboard the aircraft and that its pilots were trying to make an emergency
landing, though their Russian counterparts said flames engulfed the plane
only after it had hit the ground.

"The plane remained intact until the moment of impact," Ms. Andriyanova said
on television. "After impact, the plane caught fire."

The plane fell from an altitude of more than 36,000 feet, the airline
reported. Television images showed only small fragments of the aircraft
scattered across a charred field. By Tuesday evening, rescuers had managed
to retrieve only 30 bodies.

A witness, identified only as Irina, said on the "Russia Today" television
program that the plane seemed to be out of control before it crashed and
exploded on the ground. "It was falling like a petal," she said.

The crash was the second involving a Russian airliner in less than two
months, leaving anguished families gathered once again at airports awaiting
news.

On July 9, an Airbus A310 operated by S7 Airlines, the former Sibir
Airlines, skidded off the runway in Irkutsk, Siberia, and burst into flames,
killing 124 of 203 people aboard.

On May 3, all 113 people aboard an Airbus A320 operated by Armenia's
national airline died when it crashed into the Black Sea while trying to
land during a storm in Sochi, a Russian resort not far from Anapa.

Stuart Matthews, president of the Flight Safety Foundation, an independent
organization based in Washington, said the crashes indicated a troubling
trend. Until recently, Russia's major airlines appeared to have recovered
from a series of disasters in the 1990's, after the breakup of the Soviet
Union.

Although the circumstances in each case differed, the three recent crashes
raised questions of crew training and safety standards, he said. A day after
the Siberian crash in July, three planes made emergency landings after
mechanical malfunctions, though no one was killed in those cases.

Pilot error was blamed for the Sochi crash, though the airline, Armavia,
disputed the findings. The investigation into the Irkutsk crash has focused
on the braking system, suggesting that the pilots had erred in using a
reverse thruster that was not working properly at the time.

"The whole thing does not portend well," Mr. Matthews said in a telephone
interview. "To have three major fatal accidents like this in a short space
of time is pretty bad."

Pulkovo Airlines, based in St. Petersburg, is one of the largest of the
dozens of companies that emerged from the Soviet monopoly, Aeroflot. The
TU-154 in a workhorse of Russia's airlines, widely used for regional flights
and considered reliable. The model that crashed on Tuesday has been in
service since 1982.

The aircraft has been involved in some of Russia's worst crashes. One
Tupolev collided with a cargo plane over Germany in 2002, killing 71 people,
and one was shot down by a Ukrainian missile during a training exercise in
2001, killing 78.

Michael Schwirtz contributed reporting for this article.

Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company


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