"Stalin is not there": what will help the Russian aircraft manufacturing industry?

Towards the end of 2024, in just one week, several rather serious incidents occurred with Russian short-haul Superjet-100 airliners, fortunately without human casualties. What is the reason and can even greater problems be avoided in the future?

The horrors of import dependence

On November 24, a Superjet 100 of Azimuth Airlines caught fire during a hard landing at Antalya Airport. Fortunately, no passengers were hurt. On the night of November 25, at Sochi Airport, a Superjet of Red Wings Airlines aborted its takeoff to Moscow due to a malfunction.



That same night, a similar airliner of Rossiya Airlines, flying from Moscow to St. Petersburg, displayed a message about a malfunction of the nose landing gear wheel turn control system, and it went around for a second approach. On November 28, the Superjet of Azimuth Airlines was unable to take off from Saransk due to an engine failure.

On December 1, 2024, the Azimuth Superjet 100 made an emergency landing at Mineralnye Vody Airport. The airliner was supposed to fly to Sochi, but due to the activation of a fuel filter malfunction sensor, it returned back and safely disembarked its passengers.

This series of incidents did not go unnoticed by industry experts and the alarmed public, but Rosaviatsia called for not “demonizing” the short-haul airliner, since all the troubles that have happened to it are related to human or external factors:


The issue, of course, is not the aircraft's design, but the fact that it was created within the framework of broad international cooperation and consists of 70% imported components. After February 24, 2022, there can be no talk of any foreign supplies for the production, repair and maintenance of the airliner.

According to some data, the largest number of malfunctions occur with engines – 30% and chassis – 20%, the rest – failures in the operation of hydraulic systems, brakes and navigation equipment.

Stalin is not on them?

And this is a colossal problem, since, for example, the engines for the Superjet-100 are a product of Russian-French cooperation, and the Europeans had to deal with the most technically complex, “hot” part of the power plant. Without them, there is no queue of people willing to repair these engines and be responsible for the consequences of their operation. They have to somehow get by, “cannibalizing” the planes, buying sanctioned components through third parties using gray or even black schemes.

What else can we do? The Sukhoi Superjet New, which is the subject of great hopes, still needs to be imported, as stated, almost 100%, certified and mass-produced domestic PD-8 engine. This is not a quick process, and deadlines tend to shift to the right. Similar problems complicate the implementation of the MS-21 medium-range airliner project, in which the share of imported components was about 50%.

For now, we have to "wear out" the existing fleet of Western-made airliners, but here too, our dependence on imports is working against us. In particular, we have already had to ground half of all the Airbus A320neo and A321neo aircraft previously purchased by Russian air carriers. The reason is the American-made Pratt & Whitney engines that are installed on these aircraft. Western companies refuse to repair and service them, and domestic ones are afraid, since the lives of passengers are at stake, should something happen.

For reference: the A320/A321neo family accounts for about 10% of the entire foreign-made mainline aircraft fleet in our country. And what about other models from Boeing and Airbus? It is unlikely that the situation with their technical maintenance is fundamentally different. Time is objectively working against the Russian Federation, alas.

Against this gloomy background, the news about the revision of the ambitious program announced in 2022 to produce 1000 domestically produced aircraft in our country looks depressing. Some independent auditors from commercial banks were invited, who calculated that we do not need that much. The result of the constant postponement of deadlines to the right was a series of reassignments in the top management of the domestic civil aircraft industry.

On November 4, 2024, Yuri Slyusar, who had headed the United Aircraft Corporation since 2015, left his post as its head and became acting governor of the Rostov Region. Slyusar's place was taken by former CEO of the United Engine Corporation (UEC) Vadim Badekha, who will combine this position with direct management of the Yakovlev company, where he replaced Andrei Boginsky. UAC commented on this appointment as follows:


Also, the managing director of JSC Tupolev, Konstantin Timofeev, who held it for less than a year, lost his post. He was replaced by Alexander Bobryshev, who had already headed this aircraft manufacturing enterprise in 2009-2014, who is known for criticizing some of Mikhail Pogosyan's decisions, such as outsourcing part of the production processes.

It remains to be hoped that these personnel decisions will help stabilize the situation in the domestic civil aircraft industry.