MOSCOW, August 11 (Itar-Tass) —— Russia’s transport oversight authority (Rostransnadzor) have twice this year issued warnings to the Avis Amur airline for improper maintenance of the An-12 transport plane that later crashed in Russia’s Far Eastern Magadan region.
“In March and May 2011, Rostransnadzor checked the ill-fated An-12 aircraft operated by Avis-Amur and found a number of drawbacks in its technical condition,” a Rostransnadzor spokesman told Itar-Tass on Thursday but refused to specify.
According to the spokesman, the company’s executives were informed of the check results and were requested to take “take adequate measure to prevent possible failures.”
On Wednesday, Rostransnadzor suspended the operation of all An-12-type aircraft across Russia. In all, there are 12 such planes.
An An-12 transport plane operated by the Avis-Amur airline crashed in the Magadan region on August 9. There were eleven people on board the plane, all of them died in the crash.