Crashed Russian plane had a parts problem: report

Sanctions hindered the maintenance of the Russian airliner that crashed outside Moscow on Friday killing all three people onboard, it has been reported.

The Sukhoi Superjet (SSJ 100) belonging to Gazpromavia, an airline owned by gas giant Gazprom, crashed in the Kolomensky district of Moscow region.

It had disappeared from radars around 3 p.m. while en route from the Lukhovitsy Aviation Plant to Vnukovo Airport, Russian media reported.

The Sukhoi Superjet is the first Russian passenger plane developed since the Cold War and there are about 150 of the aircraft in operation.

The state-owned United Aircraft Corporation (UAC) said the plane, which had no passengers, had been on a test flight after repairs. One emergency situations ministry source said it exploded after it crash- landed in a forest. Video on social media appeared to show the crash’s aftermath with smoke rising into the air.

As of Saturday, there was no official explanation for the crash, but the Mash Telegram channel reported that the supply of spare parts for the plane had ceased in 2022, because of sanctions imposed on Moscow after Vladimir Putin launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Russian airlines have subsequently struggled to access and import spare parts for aircraft. UAC is developing an import-substituted version of the Sukhoi Superjet, but its production has not started.

The plane which crashed on Friday had been equipped with French SaM146 engines made by a Franco-Russian joint venture, according to Swiss aviation intelligence provider ch-aviation.

But Mash posted that the aircraft was testing domestic PD-8 engines, being developed to replace the French ones.

Newsweek has contacted Gazpromavia for comment.

The crash is the third of a Sukhoi Superjet since the regional passenger aircraft made its first flight in 2008, according to Reuters. In 2012, one of the planes came down during a demonstration flight in Indonesia, killing 45 people. In 2019, 41 people were killed when one of the jets crashed while landing at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport.

Sanctions have had a big impact on Russian civil aviation. Earlier this month, Russian media reported that the country’s biggest private airline S7 has had to decommission its fleet of Airbus A320neo aircraft because sanctions have made it impossible to repair and maintain their U.S.-made Pratt & Whitney engines.

In October 2023, S7’s problems finding spare parts for engines and servicing forced it to cut its operational Airbus fleet to around 13, or only one-fifth of its total Airbus fleet.