Russia’s federal air transport regulator is advising operators to ensure pilots receive additional training in non-precision approaches, given the risks of possible loss of satellite-based navigation capabilities due to interference.
Rosaviatsia is also advising regular pilot training for coping aircraft control system failures – including loss of hydraulics – and establishing “worst-case” training scenarios to develop pilot skills.
The recommendations are contained in a bulletin in which Rosaviatsia highlights an “increase”, during 2024 and early 2025, in the number of reports from crews and operators concerning failures or deviations affecting cockpit navigation aids.
These failures “may be caused by unintentional radio interference” from sources including electronic countermeasures being used to protect Russian facilities from “illegal use” of unmanned aerial vehicles, it states.
Rosaviatsia says a decision by the state commission on radio frequencies, dated April last year, permits the use of such countermeasures within 30km of an airport, as long as organisational and technical measures are developed to “minimise” harmful interference to aviation communications.
The regulator advises that characteristic signs of interference, or spoofing of signals, include mismatched position data, time shifts, and abnormal discrepancies between airspeed and groundspeed.
Rosaviatsia warns that these could lead to the inability to use area navigation, route deviation, inaccuracies in time-dependent systems, and the loss – or incorrect operation – of safety avionics such as terrain-warning equipment.
Crews should be trained to assess the risks of flying to airports in “interference-affected areas”, the bulletin states, and prepare for the possibility of flying procedures, such as non-precision approaches in instrument conditions, which do not depend on satellite-based navigation.
Rosaviatsia issued the bulletin a few days before Kazakh investigators disclosed preliminary findings into the fatal Azerbaijan Airlines Embraer 190 crash at Aktau on 25 December.
The findings state that the aircraft lost GPS navigation capability over Russia and the crew was unable to follow an area navigation approach pattern to Grozny.
After twice attempting a non-precision approach in reduced visibility, the crew abandoned the landing to return to Baku.
But it was subsequently badly damaged by an explosion – losing all its hydraulic systems and retaining only limited flight control – and the crew, after considering alternative airports including Mineralnye Vody and Makhachkala, diverted to Aktau where the jet crashed.
Rosaviatsia states that the preliminary findings do not contain conclusions over the cause of the accident, including the source of the explosion.
Initial claims of a bird-strike or an oxygen cylinder blast – which were ridiculed by Azerbaijan’s government as a “cover-up” attempt – actually came from the Embraer crew during radio communications to Russian air traffic controllers, it points out.
While Rosaviatsia acknowledges investigators’ confirmation of damage resulting from external impact, the regulator adds: “The report does not reflect that the Kazakh side identified foreign objects in the aircraft, while the Russian Federation has not had such an opportunity to date, since these elements were not transferred to it for examination.”
Rosaviatsia also states that the crew “independently” chose to divert to Aktau, despite being offered Mineralnye Vody and Makhachkala by Russian air traffic controllers.
