Originally Posted by
Nil by mouth
I don't have much faith in Russian built aeroplanes.
There was nothing wrong with Soviet era aircraft from a safety point of view, most of the accidents involving the types were due to how they were operated, not how they were built (see numerous accidents in Russia after conversion to western types). In fact structurally they were much stronger and could take far more punishing than comparable western planes. This was mainly due to one thing: the lack of faith in the metallurgic industry to deliver to specifications. All Soviet designs called for every single part to fail at no less than 200% of the maximum design load. Western certification standards are 150%. This resulted in a much stronger (and much heavier) airframe, with all the consequential economic penalties. For the same fundamental reasons Soviet engine technology was also far lagging the west.
Ironically the SSJ was the first Russian civilian aircraft built to western certification standards. However it is still much heavier than comparable western aircraft, and in the process has lost some of the advantages of a stronger structure. The Moscow accident would have been survivable, had the wing structure been able to contain the fuel after the hard landing (there were several similar incidents before the Moscow accident, in those cases the fuel did not catch fire).