Oops!...Moscow Did It Again

Trigger-happy Russian air defenders seem to have shot down yet another civilian airliner

Deadly crashes of civilian airliners have become a thankfully rare occurrence. Just a few decades ago, fatal incidents with major death-tolls were commonplace worldwide. What’s termed hull-losses in the industry are now considerable outliers, thanks to improvements in aviation safety ranging from engineering and design progress to better crew resource management. This improvement has been particularly marked in the developed world. The United States hasn’t had a major commercial airline disaster in almost 16 years, a record by a wide margin.*

Even in less developed countries, commercial air disasters are occurring less frequently than in the past. Some of this can be attributed to better crew training and improved engineering, as well as the emergence of safer airliners. One of the safest of the newer jetliners is the Embraer E190, a short-to-medium-ranged twin engine aircraft. Since entering revenue service nearly two decades ago, the Brazilian-made E190 has enjoyed an excellent safety record, with only two hull-losses with fatalities, in China and Southern Africa, both of which were caused by bad piloting, nothing to do with the E190 itself.

Then came Christmas, two days ago, when a third E190 went down with significant loss of life. Yet this tragic incident, too, seems to have nothing to do with the aircraft itself – and everything to do with Russian incompetence meets malfeasance.