Ukrainian intelligence get access to Rosaviatsia's secret data: Industry on verge of collapse

The HUR said this in a post on Facebook, Ukrinform reports.

According to the post, the said agency is responsible for flight safety and records all emergency cases during the use of Russian aircraft.

Among the data obtained as a result of hacking and penetration into enemy information systems is a list of Rosaviatsia's daily reports for more than one-and-a-half years.

Their analysis shows that Russia's civil aviation sector is on the verge of collapse, the Ukrainian intelligence agency said.

In January 2023, 185 air accidents were recorded in Russian civil aviation. About a third were qualified as incidents of various levels of danger. Russia's Sukhoi Superjet short-haul aircraft became the leader here, with 34 problem cases recorded.

In the first nine months of 2023, 150 cases of aircraft malfunctions were documented in Russia. For the same period in 2022, only 50 such incidents were recorded. Therefore, the level of danger of flights in Russia has tripled, the HUR said.

The most problematic areas of Russian aviation are engines and chassis, as well as other important elements, including hydraulic systems, flaps and software.

According to Ukrainian intelligence, Russia also faces serious difficulties with the maintenance of aircraft with a large mileage. Due to the lack of capacity and specialists in Moscow, they are trying to reorient aircraft maintenance to Iran, where the relevant work is carried out without the appropriate certification.

As of March 2022, the Russians had about 820 foreign-made civilian aircraft, and at the time only up to 10% of them underwent uncertified repairs using non-authentic spare parts, whereas "now almost 70% of the aircraft fleet passed such a 'maintenance'," the HUR said.

The acute shortage of spare parts has led to the so-called "aircraft cannibalism," when some planes are disassembled to repair others. According to available data, by the middle of 2023, more than 35% of aircraft in Russia were used to repair others.

Most of the Soviet An-2 aircraft cannot take off, because the engines for them were produced in Poland, and their supply has been halted due to sanctions.

In addition, in January 2023 alone, among the 220 Airbus aircraft in Russia, 19 different failures were recorded. In particular, 17 cases of smoke were recorded in nine planes used by Aeroflot.

Of the 230 Boeing aircraft used in Russia, 33 technical system malfunctions were recorded.

One in seven Brazilian Embraer jets could not withstand the conditions of Russian maintenance, and there are 21 of them in Russia, Ukrainian intelligence said.

Back in September 2022, the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) red-flagged Russia, alongside Liberia and Bhutan, which indicates an extremely high risk to flight safety.

An analysis of the nature of air incidents from the received documents indicates that a number of failures, especially those related to engines, landing gear and wing mechanization, is systemic. The trend shows that the sphere of civil aviation in Russia "is in a zone of serious turbulence," the HUR said.

The corresponding reality is a direct consequence of the sanctions, and the most painful ones were a ban on the supply of aircraft and spare parts for them, complete refusal of maintenance and service provision, refusal to update the software, detention of Russian aircraft abroad, and restriction of access to meteorological information for air navigation.

The Russian Federation, exposing its population to mortal danger, is trying by all means to hide an endless pile of problems with civil aviation, Ukrainian military intelligence said.

Photo credit: GUR