* Investigators: Witness, video evidence support finding
* ATR 72-200 flights suspended to reassure passengers-UTair
* Russian transport plagued by deadly negligence
(Adds detail, quotes, background, byline)
By Nastassia Astrasheuskaya
MOSCOW, April 4 (Reuters) – Failure to de-ice a Russian
passenger plane before takeoff was the most likely cause of a
crash in Siberia that killed 31 people, federal investigators
said on Wednesday.
The UTair ATR 72-200 craft, carrying 43 people, tilted to
its right side and then sharply left as it crashed shortly after
takeoff from Tyumen in western Siberia on Monday.
“At the moment, on the basis of the materials received, the
investigators consider the failure to conduct a de-icing
procedure to be the most probable cause of the air crash,”
Russia’s Investigative Committee said on its website.
It said witness statements from those responsible for
de-icing the plane and video evidence from the airport’s
surveillance systems supported the suspicion. UTair officials
declined immediate comment.
The head of Russia’s federal air transport agency
Rosaviatsiya, Alexander Neradko, had also said earlier that the
plane had not been de-iced properly.
UTair has suspended flights of ATR 72-200s pending results
of a separate investigation by the Interstate Aviation
Committee, which looks into air crashes in 12 former Soviet
republics.
UTair director Andrei Martirosov said, however, that the
decision was made to reassure passengers and that there were no
grounds for doubt so far that the plane was in a good technical
condition.
UTair said the plane crashed while trying to make an
emergency landing.
The federal investigators said the plane had notched up
35,000 flying hours since going into operation in 1992 and had
not had a “serious” technical check since 2010.
ATR is an equal partnership between two major European
aeronautics players, Alenia Aermacchi, a Finmeccanica
company, and EADS.
The crash was the worst in Russia since a Russian-made
Yak-42 slammed into a riverbank near the city of Yaroslavl after
takeoff on Sept. 7, 2011, killing 44 people and wiping out the
Lokomotiv Yaroslavl ice hockey team.
Russia and the former Soviet republics had one of the world’s
worst air-traffic safety records last year, with a total
accident rate almost three times the world average, the
International Air Transport Association said.
Russia’s transport sector is plagued by deadly accidents
blamed on a combination of decrepit infrastructure, human
negligence and corruption.
(Editing by Alessandra Rizzo)
