Week of October 20, 1997

ICAO And Russia Look At Trans-Polar Routes

By Vovick Karnozov

On 16 October, president of the ICAO council Assad Kotait and director of Russia's Federal Aviation Service (FAS) Gennady Zaitsev held a press-briefing on the results of their talks in Moscow. ICAO, which is a specialised establishment of the United Nations, has 186 countries among its members (the former USSR joined it in 1970). In 1996, members transported 1.35bn passengers. It is expected that in the first decade of the 21 century ICAO traffic will exceed 2bn passengers a year.

The ICAO president said his visit to Russia was made to develop further relations between ICAO and FAS and discuss steps in increasing flight safety. In accordance with its status, ICAO establishes international safety and security standards, which are then implemented in practice by the governments of its members.

The airspace over Russia, some 45 million square km, is used by many aircraft belonging to hundreds of airlines, including many national flag-carriers. Because of this, it was important for the ICAO president to make sure the equipment and structure of Russian civil aviation, as well as skills of Russian specialists, fully comply with international standards.

ICAO president said that he is not happy with the latest accident rates in 1996 in all corners of the world. Although air transport remains the safest, the expected yearly level of 2 bn passengers would mean one serious accident a week if no serious measures are taken to improve the situation with flight safety by the end of the century. The president considers the expected rate as not acceptable.

In 1996 and early 1997 ICAO made an assessment to 52 states. It was limited to three areas - pilots skills, aircraft maintenance and fleet air worthiness. The president said that the assessment will be continued, involving more countries. In November, the ICAO Council will conduct a conference of aviation leaders of the world. They will come to Montreal to discuss a new global strategy and program of measures on improving flight safety. The leaders will decide whether to extend the program to air traffic control systems and infrastructure of airports.

One of many measures proposed in this program is to increase capabilities of the existing navigation system by a wider usage of satellites. The president believes that implementation of global satellite-based navigation system will give great benefits to airspace users flying over Siberia and the Pacific Rim. Last year ICAO signed agreements with the US and Russian governments on using GLONASS and GPS satellite-based systems in the interests of civil aviation. Back in 1991, the US and Russia agreed in principle on using its military navigation satellites for civil purposes.

If the US and Russian systems are used together, the accuracy of navigation increases dramatically. According to Gennady Zaitsev, GLONASS allows the location of coordinates of an airplane with an error of 7 m at autonomous mode and 50 sm at differential mode. Joint usage of GLONASS and GPS decrease the error down to 7 m and 35 sm respectively.

ICAO president noted that it is important for his organisation to develop the right concept in this field, in order to allow its members, including the US and Russia, to understand what services they can offer to the civil airspace users. He explained that ICAO does not consider a particular system - for instance, GLONASS. The task for ICAO is to determine international standards to service-providers of satellite-based navigation systems.

After a proposed global satellite-based navigation system is implemented - planned for 2010 - the world's airspace can be used much better than now, allowing operators to fly optimal routes and, subsequently, achieve better operational efficiency.

Among other issues discussed in Moscow were perspectives of using trans-polar routes. The ICAO president received full approval of this idea from the FAS. Russia has agreed to review the structure of routes open for foreign operators over its national territory. New lines that may be open are ones linking Southeast Asia and North America. These would reduce the travel time from the Pacific Rim to the US by two or even three hours.

Summarizing the results of negotiations with representatives of the Russian Government and FAS, ICAO president said, "I am leaving Moscow with a strong will to support the policy of opening new routes via the Russian territory for international users." He added that Russia should take appropriate measures to provide adequate services for the airspace users flying those routes.

Speaking after ICAO president, Gennady Zaitsev said that FAS fully supports the idea to hold a high-ranking conference on flight safety in November. Russia is ready to provide ICAO with its database on accidents of Soviet and Russian aircraft in the last 20 years. Zaitsev believes that sharing such information will help work out good methods of improving flight safety on a global scale. "By sharing our data-base we show that Russia has no secrets in this field," he said.

Touching on the theme of trans-polar routes, Zaitsev announced a decision to form a special group, with a status of ICAO committee, to investigate the matter thoroughly. First, he said, it is necessary to conduct economic feasibility studies and understand what additional ground equipment is needed to provide adequate services to operators. Second, it is important to determine what routes are really needed.

In 1997, there were seven crashes of Russian civil aircraft, including five helicopters and one An-2 piston biplane. Only one out of seven crashed aircraft was a relatively large airliner, an Antonov An-24, 50-seat turboprop. Zaitsev says that judging by figures, flight safety in Russia remains high - higher than the ICAO average. Admittedly, he continued, no matter how few people were killed in accidents, even one death is a tragedy. Having investigated the recent catastrophes, FAS has prepared a program of measures on improving flight safety by the year 2000.

Zaitsev reminded journalists that three years ago the US government prohibited Americans from flying Russian airliners on the grounds of perceived inadequate flight safety. However, after FAA specialists had inspected the work of Russian aviation at the invitation of Russian civil aviation authorities, all barriers were withdrawn. This year FAA specialists are invited to inspect the work of Russian aviators again. Taking account of the trend to "globilise" the matter of flight safety, Zaitsev offered ICAO to use the experience of FAA inspections.

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