Europe Considers Banning USSR-made Aircraft

16-April-2008

Following an advice of the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA), the European Commission may prohibit the European air companies to use any USSR-made aircraft due to they have not undergone certification. According to the data provided by EASA, around 260 Soviet planes are in use in the EU.

The European Commission obliged all European air carriers to use only certified aircraft in September 2003 and gave them 42 months to submit all documents needed for certification. At the beginning of 2007 that term was prolonged for one year and finally expired on March 28, 2008.

Representatives of the Russian aircraft manufacturing industry express an opinion that USSR-made aircraft could not and cannot be certified in accordance with the European rules as when these planes were developed and produced, such requirements simply did not exist.

http://www.russia-ic.com/news/show/6178/

These are the bureaucratic idiots that have effectively banned DC3's from the skies, due to requirements that all aircraft over 19 seats have to have major modifications.

See the note below from the Air Atlantique website.
A Word About Safety
It's worth stressing at this point that we're fully committed to anything that makes flying safer - as our safety record demonstrates. The EU-OPS legislation is well-intentioned, but it lays down requirements that are impossible or impractical for vintage aircraft.

Fitting oxygen masks to an aircraft that never flies high enough to use them, or equipping it with chutes to deliver passengers to the ground four feet below the exit door would be prohibitively expensive - even if the items were available. And these are just an example.
Sadly, from July 15th, we have to withdraw the Daks from passenger flying.

Someone suggested that they reduce the number of seats to 18 to comply, but the idiots in Brussels have stated that if an aircraft is designed to seat more than 19 passengers then the rules apply, no matter how many seats are in there!