Russian aviation agency against private pilot training
MOSCOW. Dec 9 (Interfax) - Pilots of Russian commercial civil aircraft should be trained in government institutions with licenses from the Ministry of Defence and not in private schools, Federal Air Transport Agency (Rosaviatsia) Chairman Alexander Neradko said.
"We are actually completely against this [training pilots in private schools], otherwise there will be chaos in the skies. But, unfortunately, we have business people in the country for whom money is more important and the struggle for it eclipses all common sense," Neradko said in an interview, published by Moskovsky Komsomolets newspaper Monday.
Many of these people are covering themselves by talking about the need to boost and expand private, regional aviation, he added
"That is right. But the main thing needs to be flight safety. Everything else comes after that. Human life is so valuable that it to neglect it is criminal," he said.
There are currently 80 Rosaviatsia training centers that are on a par with government flight schools, he said.
"Not all of them train pilots, some train engineers, crew members. But, unfortunately, the regulations these centers are certified to comply with have been in place since 1999 and have become outdated," he said.
As to the plane crash in Kazan and the searches carried out as part of the investigation, Neradko said investigators were interested in documents from 2008=-2009 that concerned the certification of aviation training centers, where the pilots of the ill-fated Boeing were taught.
Neradko confirmed that both centers - Kaluga and Northwest, were closed due to shortcomings back in 2008 and 2009, respectively.
"I will not say right now what exactly the [violations] were, but there may be some kind of registry and something else. That is why we are now checking all pilots that were trained according to that program and not just at those two centers - Kaluga and Northwest, - but in some others too," he said.
