Russia’s Preventive Maintenance Crisis

George Rebane

Russians have always had a problem keeping their equipment in top operating shape.  This problem goes back to the days of Peter the Great who brought back the latest ship building technology from his trip to western Europe.  They subsequently built great stuff that inevitably had catastrophic breakdowns.  In modern times such public embarrassments occurred everywhere from the sinkings of their advanced submarines and supersonic transports crashing to big apartment buildings whose HVACs mysteriously blew up.

Lately such failures have occurred on even more mundane levels.  For instance, multiple reports of upper story windows which have suffered from untightened latches.  These have caused a number of tragic accidents in which prominent Russian industrialists continue to fall to their deaths.  Now we hear of private aircraft whose major components, like wings, are not bolted securely to their fuselages, and result in tragedies of their falling apart at altitude during routine operations which simple maintenance and monitoring procedures would have prevented

This morning we read reports of just this kind of preventable accident happening to a business jet flying out of Moscow.  At 28,000 feet some 100 kilometers northwest of the city, the jet fell apart.  Bystander videos show the airplane with one wing missing and trailing smoke, spiraling to the ground and exploding on impact with all aboard killed.

Subsequent reports indicate that Yevgeny Prigozhin, the Wagner paramilitary group commander, and some of his senior staff were passengers on the craft which, surprisingly it turned out, also belonged to Prigozhin.  Since the Wagner troops have been Russia’s only effective military forces in Ukraine, this loss, no doubt, has come as a shock to President Putin.

The whole thing reminds one of “For want of a nail the shoe was lost.  For want of a shoe the horse was lost. …”.  From this latest incident the message to all of Russia’s maintenance people is clear – check you work!

Comments

[The Estonian Fox]

George, perhaps you should write a similar article about how maintenance of our own American infrastructure has fallen into disrepair.

Secondary schools fail to adequately educate our students in the basics of our human existence;
Colleges that fail to educate on the basics of our future, and the maintenance of our present existence; can't repair gas turbines? Outlaw them - problem solved.
A military struggling to gain recruits - we must depend on our adversaries being even MORE ill-prepared than we in our next war;
Medical schools preparing diverse folks with insufficient knowledge to keep patients alive;
Air-traffic Controllers unable to guarantee safe air or ground separation.
Computers in all of our pockets used to analyze pressing problems - Call of Duty and Fortnite are useful, are they not?
Large corporations suppressing freedom of speech - is that a distinction without a difference from governments suppressing same?

But all is not lost - our legal system is the highest-rated in the world. We hold the record for most lawsuits filed annually.

[Bob Hobert]

There's a not too subtle tongue-in-cheek element to this posting.

[Humphrey Ploughjogger]

Yes George, it does seem to be a problem.
Furthermore, their auto industry has suffered from sanctions due to their military exploits.

"As expected, Russia's top car brand lags behind in terms of modern cars. The strategic relaunch of Lada, a company owned by Renault until the beginning of the war in Ukraine, was going well thanks to the close collaboration with the French company. However, the planned new models have been abandoned and today this Russian manufacturer offers five types of passenger cars with an average age of 21.6 years.

It's not just the legendary Niva, launched in 1977, that is responsible for this outcome. The Largus, based on the first Dacia Logan, the Granta (revealed in May 2011), and the Vesta (September 2015) are also getting older. Are new products in the pipeline? Not at all."

"I said that this should be absolutely excluded and all officials of the country should drive domestic cars," Putin said, telling officials they should strive to develop domestic brands, domestic cars, and other domestic products.
Putin himself drove a Mercedes-Benz across the Crimean Bridge linking southern Russia to the annexed Crimean peninsula in December, two months after an explosion had torn through it, one of the Kremlin chief's showcase infrastructure projects."
Domestic sales are booming, Analytical agency Autostat, citing data from its partner consulting company PPK, said 95,654 vehicles were sold in July, up from 82,407 in June and just 35,584 in July 2022.
However, China is competing with it's car sales taking an increasing market share."

It remains to be seen how well the automotive fleet can be maintained as there have been a couple of catastrophic car failures in the past year or so resulting in deaths.

Russian car sales rebound in July as Putin touts domestic vehicles https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russian-car-sales-rebound-july-putin-touts-domestic-vehicles-2023-08-04/

[The Estonian Fox]

Wow! - finals of the World's Decathlon - 3 Estonians in the top 10 (4, 6, 9). No Russians in the top 25. No preventive maintenance by the Russians for top athletes.