MOSCOW. Dec 3 (Interfax-AVN) - The Russian Armed Forces have suffered nine flight accidents this year, leaving 34 casualties, a source in the Defense Ministry told Interfax-Military News Agency Tuesday.
According to the source, "15 crewmen and 19 passengers have been lost this year in nine flight accidents, five of them crashes."
Six flight accidents have been caused by human mistakes, the other three by hardware faults, all in all about 24,000 flight hours per flight accident, and more than 35,000 flight hours per human-caused flight accident.
In particular, the Russian Air Force has suffered this year six flight accidents, two of them crashes. Three crewmen and six vehicles (an SU-24 Fencer, an SU-27 Flanker, an AN-12 Cub, and three L-39 Albatroses) have been lost. The source noted that two of the aircraft, a Fencer and an MI-8 Hip helicopter, were lost during operations in Chechnya. A pilot and seven passengers were killed.
According to the source, the Russian Air Force has suffered 32 flight accidents, 13 of them crushes, since January 1, 2000; 44 crewmen, 111 passengers, 24 fixed-wing, and eight rotary-wing aircraft have been lost.
From this number, 75 percent of flight accidents have been human-caused, and the other 25 percent hardware-caused. For the latter reason, seven fixed-wing and one rotary-wing aircraft have been lost this year. According to the source, these figures do not include those killed in action.
According to the PR Department of the Russian Emergencies Ministry, 31 air crashes have taken place in Russia's airspace this year, leaving 267 people killed and 112 injured. Within the same period of 2001, 27 flight accidents were registered.