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The smuggling trail keeping Russian passenger jets in the air
FT ^ | May 10, 2024 | Chris Cook, Sylvia Pfeifer, Polina Ivanova and Chloe Cornish

Posted on 06/24/2024 7:33:58 PM PDT by MinorityRepublican

In July 2022, the staff at Vnukovo airport in Moscow found an unusual item in the luggage of a passenger: a piece of equipment that engineers call an “air data inertial reference unit”.

Modern passenger aircraft are packed with sophisticated technology and few devices are more delicate than these advanced pieces of avionics, which use gyroscopes and accelerometers to monitor the twists and turns.

According to paperwork that was later filed by customs officers, the item weighed 11kg and was listed as costing $40,000. It was destined for S7, Russia’s second-largest airline.

Nor was this a one-off occurrence. By the end of 2022, a further 10 ADIRUs sent in passenger luggage destined for S7 were reported in customs forms at Moscow airports.

The luggage trade is a striking example of the unorthodox supply routes that Russian airlines have been forced to rely on since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Hit by sweeping sanctions and export controls, they have had to reinvent the ways they source parts in order to keep their planes in the air.

(Excerpt) Read more at ft.com ...


TOPICS: Russia
KEYWORDS:

1 posted on 06/24/2024 7:33:58 PM PDT by MinorityRepublican
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To: MinorityRepublican

Might as well lock this thread down since you can’t read the article it’s behind a firewall.


2 posted on 06/24/2024 7:36:01 PM PDT by ncfool (America has died we are living in the united socialist states of aMeriKa)
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To: MinorityRepublican

The Neocons are PISSED because Russia’s Western planes haven’t yet started killing Russian families.


3 posted on 06/24/2024 7:37:03 PM PDT by BobL
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To: All

Commercial inertial nav unit with external air data sensors are about $11K from Litton. They probably had 2 or 3 aboard. Customs declarations always over quote to avoid getting in trouble.


4 posted on 06/24/2024 7:44:38 PM PDT by Owen (.)
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To: ncfool

Here’s a working link
https://www-ft-com.ezphost.dur.ac.uk/content/f8d61a5d-708f-47c4-8dbd-0e80452dea5a


5 posted on 06/24/2024 7:53:21 PM PDT by IncPen ("Inside of every progressive is a Totalitarian screaming to get out" ~ David Horowitz)
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To: MinorityRepublican

Russia has a domestic aircraft industry that has started building planes without the west.


6 posted on 06/24/2024 7:59:15 PM PDT by Jumper
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To: BobL

“The Neocons are PISSED because Russia’s Western planes haven’t yet started killing Russian families.”

If that happened, a certain deranged spammer would post the news articles multiple times and gloat over it.


7 posted on 06/24/2024 11:21:10 PM PDT by rxh4n1 ( )
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To: MinorityRepublican
"full-scale" invasion.

******************************

It's never partial scale, according to the corporate media style book.

8 posted on 06/25/2024 12:50:09 AM PDT by Neanderthal
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To: Jumper

Yet they can’t build a car I can buy

Japan, South Korea, and just about every European country can, but Russia doesn’t seem to be able to ...


9 posted on 06/25/2024 7:04:20 AM PDT by canuck_conservative (NATO - now celebrating 75 successful years of keeping the Russian monsters out!!)
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To: BobL

After the E.U. imposed sanctions on Russia, companies located in the E.U. that leased planes to Russian airlines (a large proportion of Russia’s commercial fleet) had to cancel the leases and wanted their planes back. Russia seized the aircraft and re-registered them as Russian planes.

It’s not so much a matter of Neocons wanting to see Russian families die in plane crashes but a consequence of the Russian government stealing property belonging to companies based in the E.U. Now, was the Russian theft justified? I suppose one can decide that on one’s own. Just as whether the Russian invasions of Ukraine were justified.

In any case, because of the seizure/theft of the airliners, the airliners involved will be confined to Russian airspace for the rest of their useful lives and most airline leasing companies will likely be reluctant to ever lease to a Russian airline again. No matter how the special operation turns out, Russia’s commercial aviation industry has a big problem on its hands now and in the future.


10 posted on 06/25/2024 8:08:20 AM PDT by hanamizu ( )
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To: hanamizu

“It’s not so much a matter of Neocons wanting to see Russian families die in plane crashes”

Plane crashes in Russia is NOTHING for the Neocons, now that we know they’re Clustering Russian beachgoers.


11 posted on 06/25/2024 3:29:42 PM PDT by BobL
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