Difficult time for Russian pilots.
About 80 pilots and crewmembers of passenger airliners in Krasnoyarsk Region, Siberia, were barred from work after failing checks for flight readiness. The check was conducted by the region's department of the Federal Aviation Service. The department’s chief Viktor Osipov said that increased attention to staff training was due to recent aircraft crashes that were to a large extent the result of human error. The check revealed that many pilots had not undergone retraining courses, compulsory every two years. Several cases of fictious training were also revealed. Osipov said that the sorry situation is caused by the lack of funds needed for regular retraining.