Officials Cover Up Aeroflot Emergency Safety Test Fails

Story By:  Gheorghi CaraseniSub Editor:  Joseph GolderAgency: Central European News

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Officials have been accused of trying to hide the fact that Russian airline Aeroflot has emergency escape slides on its Sukhoi aircraft that do not work properly.

The official even leaked this video of one of several tests carried out where the inflatable device tumbles from the exit door and ends up stuck under the aircraft.

The incident happened as engineers carried out tests on the Sukhoi Superjet at an unspecified location.

Russian air expert Vadim Lukashevich, 56, said the tests took place under real-time conditions earlier this month.

He claims that on four separate attempts to deploy the inflatable slide, it came out upside-down twice and tore once before finally being deployed correctly on the final attempt.

Meanwhile, he says the results of the safety tests were so bad that unnamed officials tried to hide them.

He told local media: ‘The test results turned out to be so deplorable that officials took measures to conceal them: two slides came out upside down, one of them tore and only one worked properly.”

Lukashevich shared the info on his Facebook account under the video itself showing one of the bungled slide tests.

In the clip, we see the aircraft’s door open before the inflatable ramp falls out and gets stuck on its side.

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According to Lukashevich, aircraft passengers must be evacuated within 90 seconds which is impossible with faulty emergency ramps.

He called for the aircraft, which netizens claim has flown this month, to be removed from service and have its air-worthiness certificate revoked.

According to local media, netizens claim that the aircraft had nine flights on the fourth and seventh of this month.

However, it is unclear if the passenger jet remains in use.

The Sukhoi Civil Aircraft Company are planning to hold an investigation in the wake of the incident, however, they claim that the problem is an isolated case rather than a systemic issue.

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