Spokesman says the company plans to ‘meet with Russian officials to understand their concerns’ after flying certificates withdrawn

This article is more than 4 years old

This article is more than 4 years old

Representatives of Boeing plan to meet with Russia officials “to understand their concerns”, a spokesman has said following the withdrawal of flying certificates for its 737 jets.

A statement by Russia’s Interstate Aviation Committee (IAC), dated 4 November, had said it was suspending flying certificates until it received notification that the planes were safe, but a spokesman for Rosaviatsya, the federal aviation agency, later said only it could ground planes.

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Sergei Izvolskiy, an aide to Rosaviatsya’s head, was cited by the Tass news agency as saying no such decision had been made.

A Rosaviatsya spokesman added that a meeting was planned for Friday between Russian airlines, Rosaviatsya and the IAC – which oversees the aviation industry in some ex-Soviet countries including Russia – about Boeing 737 certificates.

The IAC had said in its statement that the suspension of flying certificates would remain in effect until it received notification from Rosaviatsya and the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) about the safety of Boeing 737 control surfaces on the tail that help steer it.



The announcement came after an Airbus A321 airliner registered in Ireland but operated by a Russian company crashed in Egypt on Saturday and killed 224 people. However, the ICA did not make a link between the certificate suspension and the crash in Egypt and could not be reached for further comment.

The FAA released a statement on Thursday noting Russia’s concern about the tail control surfaces dated back to a crash in 2013 of a 737 operated by Tatarstan Airlines that killed all 50 people on board.

There are about 200 Boeing 737s in Russia, according to Reuters calculations based on data from Rosaviatsia, or about a fifth of a total fleet, both passenger and cargo.



Facebook Twitter Pinterest Video footage from 2013 shows rescue workers pouring foam on the wreckage of the Boeing 737 plane which crashed at Kazan international airport in Tatarstan

“The FAA is assisting the Russian accident investigation authority as an ‘adviser’ to the NTSB [US National Transportation Safety Board], which was appointed a US ‘accredited representative’ for the investigation into the 2013 Boeing 737 accident in Kazan, Russia,” the FAA said.

The FAA declined to comment further on the ongoing investigation.

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The biggest number of 737s is held by private airline UTair, followed by Transaero, which stopped flights last week, and Russia’s biggest carrier, state-controlled Aeroflot group. UTair and Aeroflot declined to comment.

The entire fleet of Aeroflot unit Pobeda, a low-cost carrier established in 2014, is made up of Boeing 737s.

In a separate statement, the IAC said it wanted all foreign planes operating in Russia to be re-registered on home soil, after the plane crash in Egypt.

“Over 95% of all foreign aircraft operated in Russia and accounting for over 85% of all passenger flights, including Aeroflot, are registered and are in the registers of foreign countries,” IAC said.