The Moscow Times, citing Interfax, reported that an Airbus A319 of Rossiya Airlines, flying from St. Petersburg to Sochi with 126 passengers on board, made an emergency landing at Mineralnye Vody airport on Thursday, May 30.

The Russian telegram channel 112 said that the aircraft was forced to make an emergency landing because of a fuel leak and a replacement aircraft would be sent to ferry passengers to their destination in Mineralnye Vody.

According to the independent Russian news site Insider, the aircraft involved had been grounded on May 25 because of a fuel leak and was returned to service on May 27. However, it made made another emergency landing on May 28 also due to a fuel leak.

This was the seventh emergency landing in May alone:

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May 27: another Airbus A319 from the same airline, en route from Sochi to St. Petersburg, landed at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport after the aircraft’s sensors mistakenly identified an undisclosed technical issue.

May 22: two aircraft from Yamal Airlines planes were forced into emergency landings in Tyumen, close to the Kazakhstan border: a Sukhoi Superjet 100, flying from Ufa to Novy Urengoy, reported an automatic failure and an Airbus A320, flying from Ufa to Noyabrsk, suffered depressurization of the pilot's cabin.

May 12: an Aeroflot airline Boeing-777 flying from Moscow to Guangzhou, was forced to land in Irkutsk due to loss of oil pressure in one of its engines.

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May 7: an Airbus A320 of S7 airlines, flying from Novosibirsk to Kazan, had to return to Novosibirsk after issues in its port side engine.

May 6: an Airbus A321 of Nordwind airlines flying from Moscow to Orenburg returned to the Moscow departure airport after depressurization in the cockpit.

In February the Wall Street Journal, citing the German research company Jacdec reported that the number of aircraft breakdowns in the air in 2023 had more than doubled the number reported the previous year, with almost 10 incidents for every 100,000 flights based on on data from research firm Cirium.

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According to Russia’s Federal Air Transport Agency, in just 11 months of last year, there were 670 aviation incidents of which 400 were associated with equipment failures. Incidents included fires in or other failure of engines during flights, damage to the landing gear, malfunctions of the flaps and failure of guidance systems.

In January this year there were at least 10 air incidents with 6 engine failures reported in the first 3 months of the year.

Jan. 24: an Airbus A-320 of the S7 company suffered hydraulic system failure during a flight from Vladivostok to Novosibirsk, and the navigation system on Aeroflot Airbus failed on approach to Sheremetyevo Airport.

Jan. 21: a Russian registered Dassault Falcon 10B plane on an ambulance flight from Thailand to Moscow crashed into a mountainous area of Afghanistan after its engines failed, two of the six on board died.

Jan. 15: a Yamal Airlines Airbus flying to Salekhard from Gorno-Altaisk made an emergency landing in Tolmachevo due to a malfunction. A Boeing 737-800 of Yakutia Airlines suffered tire failure during takeoff in Yakutsk. A Ural Airlines Airbus A321 after its engines twice failed to reach takeoff mode.

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Jan. 12: three flights by Pobeda airlines suffered emergencies. The main landing gear caught fire when arriving at Cheboksary airport from Moscow. An aircraft flying from Moscow to Barnaul lost its starboard-side inertial guidance system. Wiring on a Pobeda flight from Moscow to Ufa caught fire over Chuvashia.

Before the invasion of Ukraine, the Russian commercial fleet consisted of 1,031 aircraft, almost two-thirds of which were manufactured by Boeing and Airbus.

In September 2022, the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), carried out a flight safety audit of Russian airlines after which Russia was “red flagged,” which put it on a par with only Bhutan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Liberia of the 193 ICAO member countries.

Current statistics suggest the situation has worsened since then.

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