Following the detachment of a part of the aircraft`s skin, the plane returned to its departure airport. Passengers later reached their destination using a backup aircraft.
The Russian Federal Air Transport Agency (Rosaviatsiya) will investigate an incident involving a Superjet 100 aircraft operated by Azimuth Airlines. During a flight to Batumi on the morning of June 15th, a cowling from the right engine separated shortly after takeoff from Vnukovo Airport.
The crew decided to return to the airport. Preliminary data indicates that the aircraft safely landed and taxied to the parking stand on its own after burning off fuel. Rosaviatsiya has classified the event as an aviation incident. Roman Gusarov, Editor-in-Chief of Avia.ru portal, comments:
An engine cowling detaching is certainly an unpleasant incident, though it happens quite often. It occurs on various types of aircraft, both foreign and domestic. Fortunately, it almost never leads to serious consequences for the aircraft. The cowling detaches, flies off, and this does not affect the quality of the flight or the aircraft`s controllability, as the engine itself remains operational. However, it is a very unpleasant moment. This often happens for two reasons.
Either the cowling locks were not fully closed by technical personnel after maintenance, meaning it`s a `human factor` issue on the ground: they opened the engine, inspected it, then closed it, but forgot to secure the latches. Or it detached because a lock was broken, some defect. It was torn off by the airflow. This happens with any aircraft that flies. I probably don`t know of a single aircraft model that hasn`t had at least one instance of an engine cowling detaching.
The aircraft has been grounded pending investigation of the circumstances and repair of the malfunction. There were 91 people on board the Superjet 100 during the incident: five crew members and 86 passengers. The flight to Batumi was later operated by a backup aircraft.
