Russia resumes Su-24 Fencer attack aircraft flights
Russia’s Air Force has resumed Su-24 Fencer attack aircraft flights after a 10-day suspension following two crashes in mid-June, a Defense Ministry official said on Monday.
As BarentsObserver reported, the entire fleet of the old attack plane was grounded after a Su-24 crashed in the Rostov region June 19, only two days after another aircraft of the same class had crashed at the airfield near Monchegorsk on the Kola Peninsula. In both cases, the pilots ejected safely.
Pilot error has been identified as the cause of the June 17 crash, while the June 19 accident probably resulted from a failure in the Su-24 wing positioning system, a flight safety official said on Monday, RIA Novosti reports.
Ten pilots have died in the last decade in 13 Su-24 aircraft crashes in Russia.
The plane has been in service with the Russian Air Force since the mid-1970s. However, in recent years Russia has gradually been phasing out the planes, which have a patchy safety record.
