IN A DESPERATE attempt to keep its An-70 propfan military-transport programme alive, Ukrainian design bureau Antonov is trying to complete a second prototype by the end of this year. This follows the loss of the first prototype in January after it went out of control, collided with the An-72 chase aircraft and crashed.
An-70 chief designer Vasiliy Teplov says that Ukraine and Russia are doing everything possible to assemble the second prototype of the four-propfan transport and resume flight tests.
Teplov says: "The necessary funding is being provided by the Ukrainian ministry of machine building and the Russian state committee for defence branches of industry. The major part of funding is being provided by Russia."
To speed up the work, an An-70 fuselage barrel, formerly intended for structural-load analysis, will be used for the assembly of the second prototype.
Antonov officials are attempting the lay the blame for the loss of the first prototype on human error. This is in stark contrast to other sources close to the company, who claim that technical problems were already emerging with the An-70 (Flight International, 1-7 March).
Shortly before the collision, Sergey Maximov, Antonov chief test pilot at the controls of An-70, asked the crew of the chase aircraft to take position above and to the side of the aircraft, to check visually the extension of the prototype's flaps.
There are now indications that some Ukrainian authorities intend to accuse Vladimir Tersky, the An-72 captain and one of the most experienced Antonov test pilots, of dangerous manoeuvring.
One of the investigators, Leonid Berestov, has claimed in an interview: "There were no technical reasons for this crash. Both aircraft functioned normally, were controllable and completely followed the crews' actions."
Ukrainian defence minister Valery Shmarov, chairman of the investigation board, claims that data from the flight recorder - which has been almost completely recovered - along with the recorded radio exchange ,"...allow us to make a conclusion that, at the moment of collision, both aircraft were in complete order and fully controllable".
In the past four years, there have been six fatal accidents to Antonov aircraft piloted by the bureau's flight-test crews.
Source: Flight International
