Official reports emerging on An-70 crash on 27th January 2001 (426 words)

Published: 4/5/2001

According to the State Commission's report, the crash was due to the failure of the aircraft's third engine brought about by the destruction of an oil pipe in the engine's rotor hub; this would have caused an uncontrolled acceleration of the rear propeller and thus generated drag and heavy vibration. The crew's efforts to compensate led to the automatic shutdown of the first power plant, having exceeded its limits and resulted in the aircraft crashing. Yury Koptev, General Director of the Russian Aerospace Agency (RAKA), has endorsed the report that comes after weeks of considerable speculation from a number of sources. Fyodar Muravcheko, General Designer of Progress, the engine's designer, suggested that the cause of the crash might have been the extremely low ambient temperature, which might have caused the aircraft's anti-freezing system to malfunction. He also added when interviewed in mid-March, that the offending engines had been repaired and were ready for re-installation. On 16th May, the An-70 consortium STS "Medium-sized Transport Aircraft", agreed to purchase three additional engines for further testing, adding to the twelve already agreed. There are currently two additional aircraft under construction at Aviant in Kiev. The fourth aircraft reportedly being built is the commercial prototype of the aircraft. Serial production is scheduled to begin in 2002, with five aircraft being built at the two production plants, Aviant and Aviakor, with a target of 10 aircraft by mid-2004. Sources within Antonov are reluctant to identify any particular company for the component failure, saying that the hub was designed and manufactured by Aerosila in Stupino, the wiring for the control systems in Kazan and the control system itself in Ufa, with software being provided by Ufa and Ukraine. It appears top have been accepted that the failure was a systemic failure caused by a number of failures as the event occurred. The Ukrainians however, have appeared to blame the Ufa produced anti-freezing system, reiterating the earlier claims in the last few days. The cost of repairing the crashed An-70 is estimated to be $2m with repairs due to be completed by the end of April. The aircraft should be back in the air some time in May, with some reports suggesting 30th May. On 2nd April, Ukraine's Ministry of Defence and Aviant, Kiev, signed a contract for the manufacture of the first 5 serially produced An-70 aircraft for the Ukrainian Air Force, according to Valery Kazakov, deputy chairman of the state committee on industrial policy.

Article ID: 2465