Russia grounds about 200 planes, cutting off distant regions

Russia's airline industry has been thrown into confusion by a presidential decision to permanently ground two Soviet-era workhorses, the Tupolev Tu-134 and the Antonov An-24, by year's end. The two planes are the backbone of the far-flung country's regional aviation.

Aviation experts say the ban, imposed in response to a recent spate of fatal accidents with the planes, could leave hundreds of small communities effectively cut-off from the world. The planes handle the bulk of airline traffic in Siberia and Russia's far east.

"I see this as a populist decision, made by the authorities in an effort to show the public they're concerned about flight safety," says Oleg Panteleyev, an expert with the online aviation journal Aviaport.ru. "But these planes are the basis of our regional aviation, and airlines cannot afford to replace them, or bring them up to new standards, on such short notice."

Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov announced the measure Wednesday, saying that the planes must either be grounded or re-equipped with expensive safety equipment, including mid-air and ground collision avoidance systems that cost almost as much as the planes are worth.

Last month a Tu-134 jetliner missed the runway at Petrozavodsk in western Russia and crashed, killing 47 of the 52 people aboard and reviving a long-running debate over the large numbers of obsolete Soviet-era planes still flying in Russia. An investigation blamed pilot error for the accident.

This week a turboprop An-24 caught fire and ditched in Siberia's Angara River killing five people aboard and injuring over 20.

A separate accident last weekend, in which a Volga River cruise ship sank, killing about 130 people, prompted President Dmitry Medvedev to order a full investigation into Russia's aging transport systems, including a full ban on the two types of aircraft.

But Magomed Tolboyev, a legendary Russian test pilot and honorary president of MAKS, Russia's leading air show, insists there is nothing wrong with the planes and that the fault for recent accidents lies with poor maintenance, decaying infrastructure, and substandard pilot training.

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