A Case of Misoperation

The terrible tragedy at the Yaroslavl airport has given new relevance to the discussion about the deterioration of Russia’s air fleet. Indeed, statistics eloquently testify to the fact that the number of airplane catastrophes in Russia even outstrips those in African countries. Affairs in our aviation industry are in a deplorable state – the ruling Russian regime, having freeloading off of deteriorated Soviet infrastructure for the past two decades, has turned out to be incapable not only of developing the only branch of industry that could easily compete in the global market, but even of keeping it afloat. Costing it an incredible amount of strain, the arms race forced the USSR to maintain parity with the US in the aerospace industry, which allowed Soviet aviation, in addition to high-class military technology, to produce fully reliable civilian aircraft. While they do have clearly inferior-quality engines, avionics, and, of course, interior, the aerodynamic characteristics of Soviet planes nevertheless frequently surpassed their foreign colleagues.

On a recent episode of the Polny Albats radio show on Ekho Moskvy, Rector Konstantin Sonin of the Russian School of Economics disdainfully dismissed my mention of the successes of the Soviet aerospace complex – there was no place for the support of the domestic aviation industry in Gaider’s macroeconomic model. In lock-step behind his spiritual advisor Yevgeny Yashin, who tirelessly insists on triumphantly establishing a market economy in Russia, Sonin can only throw up his hands and lament the fall of domestic airplane construction.

The market, you know, regulates supply and demand on its own, and any interference by the state in this delicate process only disturbs the harmonious work of the market mechanisms that have been set up in our country. I would like to ask our homegrown liberal economists how the existence of AvtoVAZ figures into this harmonious scheme, since it continues to release its antiquated products as if nothing had happened and survives only thanks to various forms of state protectionism. In the company of refined British gentlemen, the invisible hand of the market does its work, but everything in the Russian “market” economy is governed by the avaricious paw of administrative resources, always followed by the muzzle of a civil servant grinning in anticipation of some new tasty morsel.

But the cars coming off AvtoVAZ’s conveyor belts have always brought a certain immediate advantage to the people controlling the production process, whether it be the mobsters of the tumultuous ’90s or Putin’s cronies of the stable ’00s. But investment in airplane construction has, as we know, the longest period of returns, stretching far past the limit of the commercial accounts of Russian civil servants and oligarchs. No major infrastructure projects in Russia can begin without the state’s direct involvement, and civil servants, depraved by quick and easy gas and oil dollars, see no reason to authorize long-term investment.

Because of its inextricable natural defects, the oligarchic and bureaucratic capitalism that has been established in Russia under the guise of “liberal reforms” has been incapable of providing the country with a model of sustainable economic development. Mikhail Prokhorov’s bravado-filled monologue has demonstrated once again the complete creative impotence of the Russian billionaires who flood the Forbes lists.

However, externally, the catastrophe in Yaroslavl differs markedly from other similar cases. First of all, the flight was far from typical, which, considering the very high social status of the passengers, presupposes a heightened level of attention to the quality of the flight. And the plane itself was built not so long ago – in 1993, and its last technical inspection was on August 16.

The initial speculation about the reasons for the catastrophe, which had to do with a defective motor or poor-quality fuel, have been refuted, which leaves the remaining possible explanations as either a mistake by the flight crew or a mistake by the ground crew that regulate flights at the airport. Of course, it is too early to come to any conclusions, but the basic circumstances at the airport on the day of the tragedy allow us to speculate that it was precisely the chaos caused by the arrival of the high-level leadership to the World Economic Forum that was the main reason for the catastrophe.

The plane crashed when it failed to gain enough height after takeoff, which almost certainly was caused by an insufficiently long time on the runway or something that appeared in its way. Either of those causes would be directly connected with the work of the airport’s ground crew responsible for takeoffs and landings. There’s no doubt that, on that day, the dispatchers were accompanied by Federal Protective Service officers called upon to ensure the safety of the flight of the state’s highest-ranking figures. We can also recall the crash of the Polish leadership’s plane in Smolensk, when the Russian dispatcher evidently acted on the orders of the leadership, which gave him orders based on political expediency and not aviation security.

By the way, it is not likely to be anytime soon that we will learn the name of the security services officer who probably gave the fatal order to shorten the length of time before takeoff for the Yakovlev-42 that crashed on the runway at the Yaroslavl airport. In today’s Russia, investigations of catastrophes that are in one way or another connected to the high-level leadership are never resolved. Or, the guiltiest parties are always said to be those who, by the will of fate, got in the way of the definitively unrestrained “bosses of the country.” And we can already see how the barometer of the investigation, which is subject to the inexorable laws of the pull of Russian politics, is indicating that the actions of the deceased pilots to supposedly “incorrectly choose the mode of engine operation” was the main reason for the tragedy…

P.S. This cover for Profile magazine can be wholly qualified as a frightening prophecy. The Yakovlev-42 was indeed unable to take off in Yaroslavl, and it very much seems that, even if only indirectly, Dmitri Medvedev had a hand in it. Medvedev himself continues to soar in the political skies all the same, although he doesn’t look much like an eagle. He’s more of a hummingbird – a tiny bird with beautiful wings who buzzes loudly, is extraordinarily greedy, and most importantly, is capable of flying backwards.

Translated by theOtherRussia.org.

An estimated two thousand people attended a protest in the Siberian city of Irkutsk on Saturday, and another 1200 people attended an unrelated protest in the city of Samara on the same day. Among other demands, both groups had harsh criticism for the prime minister and called for him to immediately step down.

In Irkutsk, residents, workers, and environmental activists gathered to protest the reopening of the controversial Baikalsk Pulp and Paper Mill. After decades of protests, operations at the mill were finally suspended in October 2008 due to environmental concerns regarding the mill’s discharge of toxic waste into Lake Baikal, the world’s largest freshwater lake and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. However, a decree signed by Prime Minister Putin in mid-January allowed the mill to reopen, sparking renewed outrage from citizens and environmental activists internationally.

A coalition of ecological and civic organizations organized Saturday’s protest, and politicians from the local legislative assembly and Moscow showed up to support the effort. Leader Sergei Mitrokhin of the liberal Yabloko Party and co-leader Vladimir Milov of the Solidarity opposition movement were among those present. Activists from the banned National Bolshevik Party also attended the protest, holding a banner reading “People! Baikal! Victory!” – the acronym of which matches with the acronym of their party name in Russian.

Protesters singled out oligarch Oleg Deripaska, who has control over the mill, and Prime Minister Putin, who they accuse of covering up Deripaska’s unethical business practices, as the main targets of their enmity.

Irkutsk city officials had warned prior to the rally that security would be tight. Blaming “the current economic situation of Russia” for an increase in opposition protests, Deputy Internal Minister Mikhail Sukhodolsky promised that “no excuses will be accepted” for failures of the police to curb demonstrations.

Given that, the city dispatched a number of armored military vehicles to flank the demonstration. Photographs published online of the vehicles, one of which resembles a small tank, were decried on Tuesday by the Russian Internal Ministry as “provocational and not corresponding to reality.” In a statement to Kasparov.ru, Solidarity activist Ilya Yashin maintained that “my colleague Vladimir Milov took these photographs, and many people saw these machines.”

The increase in police forces was especially notable because of the comparatively small security presence at a January 30 rally in Kaliningrad, where 12 thousand people gathered to protest rising tariffs and to demand the resignations of the prime minister and local Governor Georgy Boos.

Demonstrators at a counter-protest in Irkutsk organized by the pro-Kremlin United Russia party praised the reopening of the mill, with between a thousand and 1500 participants holding banners with the phrases “Baikalsk Pulp and Paper Mill – our life” and “Thanks to the government for the opportunity to work in Baikalsk.” One placard directed at opponents of the mill read “Suitcase – Station – UNESCO.”

In contrast to their choices during the Kaliningrad rally, the regional branches of the token opposition groups Liberal Democratic Party (LDPR) and A Just Russia sided with the United Russia counter-demonstration. State Duma Deputy and LDPR member Andrei Lugovoy, who is wanted by a British court for suspicion in the murder of Alexander Litvinenko, travelled from Moscow to address the crowd.

The second protest, in Samara, was initially intended to be held “in defense of constitutional rights and freedoms.” In addition, however, protesters turned out to voice their disapproval of numerous governmental practices, including rising housing and utilities tariffs, crumbling infrastructure, and the failed modernization of the local AvtoVAZ automobile manufacturer. Among their concrete demands were the return of direct gubernatorial elections and the resignations of Prime Minister Putin and Samara Governor Vladimir Artyakov, who is also the former head of AvtoVAZ.

A number of civic and labor organizations took part in the rally in Samara, including the All-Russian Strike Committee, which was invited by AvtoVAZ factory workers. According to Committee coordinator Nikolai Nikolaev, several groups of auto workers from the cities of Tolyatti and Syzran were unable to attend the demonstration because police had blocked off the road.

Given the failed modernization of the auto manufacturer, Nikolayev said after the rally, “people discussed the issue of how to live from now on. The AvtoVAZ workers said that the authorities are not dealing with their problems.”

In their own way of dealing with their problems, regional police in Samara are planning to initiate criminal charges against the rally’s organizers. During the demonstration, voters rights activist Aleksandr Lashmankin called for participants to stage a repeat demonstration on March 5 – a statement that “was not covered in the application to hold the rally,” a police representative explained to the Interfax news agency.