OREANDA-NEWS. July 27, 2011. UTair Aviation announces that information previously distributed through the mass media concerning an 'emergency landing' of a UTair Tu-134 aircraft at the Koltsovo Airport with a reference to the Federal Ministry of Emergency and Disaster Response in the Sverdlovskaya Region on July 19, 2011 does not correspond to the facts.

At the Novosibirsk Tolmachevo Airport, airport personnel found fragments of rubber components thought to be from aircraft landing gear on the runway after the take off of UTair-Express (a subsidiary airline of UTair Aviation) Tu-134 aircraft and several other aircraft from Novosibirsk.

This information was forwarded to destination airports of the recently departed aircraft, including Yekaterinburg, the destination of the UTair-Express Tu 134 following a route including Irkutsk-Novosibirsk-Yekaterinburg-Surgut. The aircraft crew was informed that it would be necessary to undergo wheel check from the ground prior to landing and in accordance with this request, the aircraft made a passage over the runway with landing gear down before landing. After the aerial inspection, the aircraft made a standard landing without incident. On the ground inspection of the landing gear revealed no compromise in the landing gear mechanism of the UTair-Express Tu 134 aircraft. Contrary to suggestion of reports later circulated by the mass media, the fragments of rubber landing gear found in Novosibirsk did not come from the UTair-Express aircraft.

The many mass media reports that used the expression ‘emergency landings’ to describe the routine safety precautions connected to the incident, in particular the UTair Aviation Tu-134 and Tu-154 aircraft, are both grossly exaggerated and misleading. The failure to accurately report the facts amounts to a potentially libelous inference that emergency situations with these aircraft are a regular occurrence. Such careless regard for the facts openly contradicts official flight safety statistics that are public knowledge. As a reminder, UTair Aviation informs the public and its passengers that during the history of UTair flight operations with Tu-134 and Tu-154 aircraft since 1991, there has been only one accident involving a Tu-134, in which there were 6 casualties. According to the investigation commission, this accident was not the result of aircraft malfunction or the performance failure of any onboard systems, but was the result of human error and violations of procedure among the crew and ground service communications during a landing in severe weather conditions.

For over 20 years UTair Tu-134 and Tu-154 aircraft have logged more than 700,000 flight hours, made more than 320,000 flights and carried nearly 20 million passengers. A large number of these flights were made in regions with difficult weather conditions requiring the highest level of flight and maintenance skills from flight crews and ground personnel.

Since that time, no other accidents with UTair Aviation aircraft have taken place. This record confirms the safety level demonstrated by leading Russian airlines is very high even when compared with world statistics and is much higher than the safety performance of other forms of transport that are often considered to be safer, for example cars.

The above mentioned statistics attest to the high level of professional conduct of the flight crews and technical staff, as well as the safety of these aircraft types.

UTair Aviation asks official representatives of civil authorities and mass media to review and consider the competency and objectivity of its sources and to provide correct, balanced information.

According to Russian legislation governing the investigation of aviation incidents, a flight accident is defined as a situation in which an aircraft receives damage, or its construction is compromised, or any person has a fatal injury, or when an aircraft is lost. An incident is defined as an accident without victims.