Mexican discount airline Interjet grounded up to half its fleet of Sukhoi Superjet 100 aircraft following a safety directive issued by the Russian Federal Air Transport Agency .
The order has resulted in the cancellation of around 25 Interjet flights a day while the tail sections of 11 planes are reviewed for a “suspected anomaly,” the airline said in a statement.
Interjet operates 22 Russian-manufactured Superjets among its total fleet of 70 planes, but only half are subject to revision as they were manufactured at a different facility, Interjet CEO José Luis Garza informed the media this week.
Garza stressed that his airline does not operate the older Tupelov 154 aircraft, one of which crashed into the Black Sea last weekend, killing 92 people. An initial communique issued by the federal Consumer Protection Agency (Profeco) had wrongly suggested the grounding order was a result of this accident, confusing the Sukhoi and Tupelov planes.
The directive from Russian authorities came after a local airline reported suspected damage to the stabilizer on one of its planes.
The Superjet 100 has been in production for five years. In 2014, Russia’s Interstate Aviation Committee (IAC) reportedly told the state-owned United Aircraft Corporation, the SSJ’s main shareholder, that it had safety concerns about the aircraft.
In an inauspicious beginning, an SSJ 100 on a promotional flight in Indonesia in May 2012 crashed into a mountain side killing all 45 people on board, including press and senior members of the aviation industry.
On its website, the IAC said doubts were raised after tests by the Russian Federal Air Transport Agency along with other agencies following a “substantial increase in the number of incidents connected with the SSJ 100.”
Nonetheless, the website AviationVoice describes the SSJ 100 as “a revitalizer of the Russian aviation industry and a game-changing, modern, and worldwide certified airliner that delivers a high level of comfort and cabin capacity that is far superior to all of its competitors.”
The website notes that E.U.-U.S. economic sanctions on Russia have inhibited the plane’s manufacturer from widespread international expansion.
Interjet is currently United Aircraft Corporation’s largest foreign customer and is currently awaiting delivery of eight more Superjets.
Garza this week hailed the quality and safety record of the Russian-made planes.