- The president of Iran and the vice president of Malawi were killed in a recent plane crash.
- But Russia has said President Vladimir Putin will be safe as long as he travels on “very reliable” domestic aircraft.
- According to JACDEC, aviation safety accidents in Russia have more than doubled over the past year.
Russian officials have said the country's leader, Vladimir Putin, will not be involved in an aircraft accident when traveling on a domestic airline, state news agency TASS reported on Tuesday.
“The Russian president uses domestically produced aircraft. These are very reliable vehicles,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.
Peskov made the remarks at a press conference when asked about the recent plane crash that claimed the lives of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and Malawi's Vice President Saulos Chilima.
Raisi was killed in a helicopter crash over northwestern Iran on May 19. The helicopter was also carrying Iran's foreign minister, the governor of Iran's East Azerbaijan province, and other government officials. There were no survivors of the fatal accident.
Meanwhile, Chilima died in a plane crash on Tuesday along with nine other passengers. Malawi's President Lazarus Chakwera said Chilima's plane was found “totally destroyed” near the hills of northern Malawi.
But Peskov said such an accident on a Russian aircraft was unlikely given Russia's strict safety standards.
“All our vehicles transporting citizens are also maintained to the proper standards. There are very strict standards in this regard, which are, of course, observed,” Peskov said.
“We have oversight,” he continued. “The system works.”
Admittedly, Russia doesn't have the best record when it comes to flight safety.
In February, the Jet Aircraft Crash Data Evaluation Center (JACDEC) revealed that flight safety accidents in Russia had more than doubled over the past year, rising from 37 in 2022 to 81 in 2023.
The Russian aviation industry's flight safety issues are primarily due to crippling economic sanctions imposed by Western countries following Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
These restrictions prevent Russian airlines from purchasing new planes and parts, making it difficult to maintain their aircraft.
Jan-Arwed Richter, founder and CEO of JACDEC, said the actual number of flight safety incidents in Russia is likely much higher.
“These figures only reflect publicly disclosed cases. There is still a darker figure of unreported cases,” Richter told The Telegraph in February.
