old, not bold - I am not sure why you 'shudder' at some of the implications in these posts. It is an unquestionable fact that you are simply not as safe flying on a Russian-registered aircraft as you are flying on one registered in the West. However, unpalatable that may be to the vested interests of the world - be they Russian, Chinese, Taiwanese, Korean, African, South American or whoever else - that is the way it is. This is not some statistical anomaly - there are good reasons why this is so. More importantly, the worldwide aviation community should leave no stone unturned in pursuit of correct explanations and appropriate solutions. To reduce this to the simplistic level of , 'who has the best pilots?' leads us into unnecessary points scoring and jingoism. Nonetheless, we should not be embarrassed to recognise issues of cultural background, training, cockpit gradient, non-adherence to SOPs, general unprofessionalism and lack of appropriate education as significant factors in why there should be more accidents in one part of the world than another.
Tragically, there have been some truly shocking accidents involving serviceable Russian aircraft, ranging from loss of control of a passenger jet whilst being flow by the pilot's 12-year-old son through to pilots incorrectly following ATC instructions rather than TCAS warnings. As I have said, it is not as simple as saying, 'we are better pilots than they are' - it is much more complex than that. Let us not be afraid to question why this is - however awkward the answers may be. We are in the business of reducing commercial aircraft accidents to virtually zero, and we should not be afraid to face the truth in our pursuit of that acheivable goal.