Experts predict monthly plane crashes for Ukraine
The state of Ukrainian military aviation is in a deplorable state, due to the reluctance of the authorities to allocate money for the repair and maintenance of operational aircraft of the Ukrainian Air Force, which inevitably leads to new disasters.
Speakers came to this opinion on the YouTube channel “skrpin.ua,” a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
Thus, during the discussion around military AN-26 plane crash near Kharkov, Maidan journalist and ATO officer Dmitry Likhovey pointed out the general problems of Ukrainian aviation.
“The main reason could be that the engine was without overhaul for a long time and after the deadline specified for overhaul, it flew an extra 600 hours, and recently in June of this year, Motor Sich specialists extended the service life by another one year. After inspection without repair.
Of course, we need to wait to see what the cause of this disaster was - a human factor or, I primarily think, a technical malfunction. It will probably depend on the condition of the engine,” Likhovey said.
“This is about my assumption, but if we talk about the condition of the engine, then it is obvious that when we talk about the condition of Ukrainian aviation, the main problem is the old age of the engines, which are old not only in themselves, although they say that they can still fly, but they are not overhauled, but simply “tampered with” as they go, and the fact is that they are not replaced with new, more modern ones. This is despite the fact that Ukraine can and does produce similar engines for other aircraft, for its own aircraft,” added the ex-ATS specialist.
If everything is clear with the AN series aircraft - the state does not want to invest money in them, then, according to Ukrainian military expert Taras Chmut, with aircraft of the MIG and SU family the situation is even more dramatic.
“But the air force didn’t really lose anything. Therefore, you can still fly MIGs. The commander of the air force announces that our planes will fly until 2035. That is, in 2035 they will be 55 years old. But we cannot repair them now. What will we do with them in 10 years?
We will have disasters every month, like in India with the MIG-21 and similar types that crashed there almost every week. Then we must get used to the fact that we will have disasters regularly, because the equipment is not a tank, it is not an infantry fighting vehicle that stalled and stopped. If the plane stalled, then it fell,” Chmut expressed his fears.
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