There has been a chronic shortage of serviceable aircraft over the years for all aviation platforms. This was stated by the Acting Minister of Defense Atanas Zapryanov at a briefing on the results of the inspection in the Air Force, which was appointed after the fatal accident near the “Graf Ignatievo” base.
“A very objective and thorough assessment was carried out – both in the military bases and in the Air Force as a whole,” emphasized Zapryanov, specifying that a large part of the information in the inspection report is qualified, therefore only some highlights from it will be reported .
Zapryanov was adamant that the last two reports on the Air Force and on the incident with the dead pilots are absolutely independent and have nothing to do with the investigation of the Military Prosecutor’s Office.
“My conscience does not allow me to hide the truth about the state of the Air Force,” the defense minister said, and continued: “There have been three crashes in three years at three different air bases, and that is extremely worrying. It is my right to find out why this is happening and if there is a reason for these system errors. And the other important part of the inspection is the condition of our aviation equipment.”
Atanas Zapryanov announced that, based on the report, he could define several groups of problems that, in his words, have an impact on flight safety.
First of all, there is a chronic lack of serviceable aircraft over the years for all aviation platforms, the MiG-29 fighters, the Su-25 attack aircraft, the L-39 combat training aircraft, even for our Spartan transport aircraft, as well as for the Cougar helicopters and Mi-17.
“The available number of aircraft and helicopters for operational use are not sufficient to maintain the flight of pilots to perform all tasks and exercise combat training. After the start of the war in Ukraine, the MiG-29 and Su-25 were left without maintenance. We cannot repair them either in Russia or in Belarus,” commented Zapryanov and added that out of three Mi-17 helicopters, only one remained.
“Regarding the western equipment – the Spartan planes and the Cougar helicopters, this maintenance is dependent on our eternally limited financial resources. It is with great regret that I say this,” emphasized the Minister of Defense. “The strategically wrong policy over the years to bet on Soviet platforms and the delayed rearmament of the SAC led us to the current crisis with the state of aviation equipment. The project to acquire a fighter jet was delayed by more than 10 years,” Zapryanov also said.
“We will have five more operational Cougar helicopters next year.” Now we have decided to repair three more. That is, if we manage to bring 10 Cougar helicopters to flight readiness, the flight of the pilots at the 24th Air Base can be according to NATO standards, because we will have a resource for it. The second direction is that our pilots do not have enough flight for these reasons – especially our young pilots, which leads to a distortion of the pyramid. In short, they don’t fly enough,” Zapryanov also noted.
According to him, some of the personnel are leaving to other structures due to the differences in salaries.
Some of the helicopter pilots go to the Ministry of the Interior, others to the Ministry of Transport, where the salaries are much higher. “I appeal to the 51st National Assembly to implement its decision to increase the salaries of military personnel, if we want to have an army, ground forces, and air force at all,” emphasized Zapryanov.
The third problem that Zapryanov highlighted is that part of the normative documents concerning the planning and reporting of flight activity, not regulating the responsibilities of the persons involved in flight management, are out of date.
“The fourth weakness that we noted after the inspection – insufficient organizational work in some of the structures – both in the bases and in the headquarters itself,” Zapryanov also said. And he added that in the fifth place, the report found that the training of the cadets at VVVU “Georgi Benkovski” is not tied to personal control. “My appeal is – it’s not all about money. Commander’s intervention is required,” the minister also pointed out.
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