Some Aeroflot aircraft have had their brakes deactivated due to a lack of parts, with pilots briefed to land with just reverse thrust only.
It is understood that five Boeing 777s, two Airbus A321s, one A330, and one A320 are affected by this bulletin handed out to pilots at the Russian carrier.
The most important part reads:
“The aircraft will tend to turn to the side where the brakes are not deactivated. Pay attention to this fact, especially when landing on a wet runway with a crosswind!!!”
“There are restrictions on the width of the runway. The risk of overrunning the runway!!!”
Sanctions Continue to Affect Aeroflot Majorly…
At this stage, it isn’t clear what the specific airframes are, but it does show that Aeroflot is being majorly affected by sanctions.
Spare parts are hard to come by, and there is a huge safety concern reflected in this pilot bulletin.
There is, of course, the scenario of: “What if the reverse thrusts fail?”. If they fail, then on landing, there runs a big risk of the aircraft overrunning the runway.
This bulletin will no doubt be the first of many in terms of other aircraft suffering the same issues in due course.
For Aeroflot and other Russian carriers, there are only so many other aircraft they can cannibalize before issues like this become a further major problem.
All eyes will be on operators in Russia to see how much more of an issue this can become.
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