During the height of the Cold War the USSR’s military air arm earned the country international renown and the respect of US military officials. The same can hardly be said of the USSR’s domestic aviation service. The state-run airline monopoly, Aeroflot, was widely derided, rather, for its awful service, poorly maintained planes, and dicey safety standards. Things got worse for Russian civilian aviation in the years that followed the USSR’s 1991 break-up. While Aeroflot continued as the Russian Federation’s flagship international carrier, hundreds of new regional operations (the so-called “Babyflots”) emerged to provide internal domestic service to the country’s far flung urban centers. (If anything, their service and safety records made even Aeroflot look good.)

Arguably, the low-point for Russian civilian aviation came on 23 March 1994 when an Aeroflot-operated Airbus A-310 en route from Moscow to Hong Kong crashed near the town of Mezhduretshensk. The post-crash investigation revealed that the disaster had occurred as a result of “pilot error” when the flight captain’s fifteen-year old son (who had been allowed to man the plane’s controls) inadvertently disconnected the autopilot. The crash killed all 75 people aboard the plane.

Since then, Aeroflot and many of Russia’s regional carriers (like Pulkovo, Sibir, and TransAero) have worked hard to improve service, upgrade their air fleets, and strengthen safety standards. By and large their efforts have paid dividends. And yet…

Tuesday’s news that a Tupolev-154 operated by Pulkovo Air crashed near Donetsk, Ukraine en route from the Black Sea resort town Anapa to St. Petersburg, killing all 170 passengers aboard the plane, cannot help but raise questions about the current status of civilian aviation in Russia and the regions of the former Soviet Union. Initial reports suggest that inclement weather may have played a role in bringing the plane down. Still, this is the third major aviation disaster to occur in the airspace over the former Soviet Union since the spring of this year.

Last month, a Sibir Air A310 slid off a wet runway while landing in Irkutsk. The plane struck a concrete barrier before bursting into flames. 122 people were killed in the crash. Only two months earlier, on May 3rd, an A320 operated by the Armenian airline Armavia went down in the Black Sea during its final approach to the Russian resort city Sochi. Pilot error appears to have been the cause of that crash, which claimed the lives of all 113 people on board.

2006 has not been a good year for Russian aviation. And there are still four months left.

ScP