Russia Grounds Sukhoi Superjet 100 Over Safety Concerns
 

Russia Grounds Its Newest Airliner Over Safety Concerns

Grounds? 21 plane from >100 produced? Isn't this report a bit overinflated?

If look close to the source, Rosaviatsia "grounds" SIX Aeroflot SSJ and ONE IrAero because of "possible defect in one of the HS attachments". Aeroflot, which is not quite happy with service contract with Sukhoi, "grounded" all his fleet with demand for warranty repair.

Could you enlighten us? Why ground just a few planes out of the fleet of only 2 operators, not including the third largest fleet operator Gazpromavia?

I wonder how Mexico's DGAC will react with the second largest fleet being operated by Interjet.

I can only speculate, but IrAiro airframes are from the very first built and "defect" was found in one of them. Aeroflot known for their tendency to have any opportunity for cancelling "nonprofitable" flights. I can't give any more information until official papers leaks into internet.

that's is because it is a business and not a charity.
You should know that SSJs were pushed onto the Aeroflot and if I remember correctly, a large portion of their ssj fleet spent a majority of time on the ground, instead of in the air. Of course, an airplane becomes unprofitable, when it sits on the ground.

Stabilizer mounts problem

Right
Right
Wrong

Right :)

Not really.


They are quite happy with 757s, 767s and 777s or 320/330s that they use ....
If SSJ was on par with those:
1) why would SSJ be forced onto Aeroflot, in the first place?
2) why would Aeroflot start complaining about SSJs, if the type is no different in terms of time-on-the-ground from the B or A types of A/C?
If it is a profitable, cheap and reliable A/C type, why would Aeroflot start throwing a meaningless tantrum about profitability, if no such problem exists?
:ugh:
It makes no sense.
If Aeroflot complains, that means, the business perceives it as a larger problem, comparing to what they have with western types, don't you think?

Ever think about difference between local and international flights?

is there a source from the Russian CAA about this? All I can find is references in the American presss.

yes. it's another great example of privatization of profits and nationalization of losses from biggest state owned carrier. also it's "harvest everything today and flee to the safety heaven tomorrow attitude". last thing to say, Sukhoi unfortunately have no big "incense packages" for Aeroflot managers in contrary of A & B.

Here's the AD.
http://i.imgur.com/XDSQIY1.png
Interjet's press release. No mention of grounding the fleet.
https://scontent.fcul1-1.fna.fbcdn.n...8e&oe=58D736CC

Some comment from Sukhoi on the matter:
Sukhoi Civil Aircraft comment on fulfilment of FATA (Russian Federation Federal Air Transport Agency) Airworthiness Directive (dated 23.12.2016) - Luchtzak Aviation

A little known detail on the differences in design philosophies of Soviet era Russian aircraft and contemporary western aircraft was in the degree of prescribed overload limits for individual components and assemblies. In western aircraft design each individual component must be able to demonstrate withstanding of loads at least 50% higher than the maximum design load limit before failure, and assembled load bearing structures must also demonstrate the same. The old soviet aviation manufacturing standards prescribed 100% over design load limit before failure. This was because Soviet industry was not able to supply metals meeting required specificatios with a consistency that western industry was able to do. This resulted in generally much stronger, but correspondingly heavier airframes.


The SSJ was the first russian civilian airliner that was designed according to western specifications. My suspicion is that while the aircraft design may have been sound, the component manufacturers have not quite grown up to the challenge.

This isn't actually true. The design was totally Russian albeit with the heavy use of western components. The fuselage was done totally under supervision of Sukhoi design bureau, no western contractor had any part in it. The only thing that was different was Boeing's advisory role to help them navigate through western certification process and to advice them how to provide proper post-sales documentation and support (typical Achilles' heel of all Soviet/Russian aircraft). Actually, when SSJ started to sell some speculated that it still suffers from typical Soviet-style fuselage overbuilt and hence may not be fully competitive with western designs.

Do you mean, it is okay if airframes for domestic flights are sitting on the concrete, instead of flying while components are getting delivered to get a jet back into the air? Really?
:rolleyes:

I am quite tired of that attitude of old and not so old people in Russia that name everything that is positive - a local success, and everything that is negative - a western spy plot (or, alternatively, put blame for SSJ failure, onto B or A shoulders).
That reminds me of believers that praise the Lord for everything good that happened, while blaming Satan for everything bad.
These two groups of people have a lot in common. Namely, they deny facts and make up ridiculous stories to support their weird world views.
Since that attitude requires olympic-game-levels of logical gymnastics, facts and actual inconvenient truths are removed from the picture (as they disturbing to that picture), and are replaced with easy to digest explanations that do fit an imaginary world quite well.
One thing they don't do quite well, is finding and fixing real problems, though, since the connections those explanations are providing, are IMAGINARY and couldn't possible suggest any real-world fix.

Yeah, those B or A corrupt incentive package is what got SSJ.... /s
(sigh)

How about actually looking into why western countries don't want to buy SSJs and then MAKING SSJ competitive?
Nah, that would require actual work done and, potentially, a lot of it.

The NYT journo appears to be a Russian correspondent rather than an aviation specialist, so when he uses the term "metal fatigue" that may not necessarily be the failure mode.

The design was indeed entirely Russian, never said it wasn't. It was the +50% overengineering on component level (instead of +100%) that I was referring to, Russia adopted the western certification standards prior to building the SSJ, and this was the first design where they were applied (as opposed to the old Soviet era certification standards).

Dos anyone knows it the 3 City Jet SSJs that are right now flying for between Ireland and France are affected ?
Saw one last week in CDG terminal 2G .
The airline is reported to have 12 more on order to replace their RJs .( plus 16 more options) They must have done their maths.