ALROSA

Is ALROSA safe?

ALROSA has no fatal accident we could find in the last 20 years, but its record is not as clean as that sounds. In 2014 one of its Mi-8 helicopters was destroyed with 16 people on board after a captain who was most likely drunk took it up, and investigators found the airline's safety management system did not work. Russia's accident investigators have opened three more accident cases on its An-2 and helicopters since then. It is on the EU Air Safety ListEU Air Safety ListThe European Commission's list of airlines banned or restricted from flying in EU airspace because they do not meet international safety standards.More in the glossary, has no IOSAIOSAThe IATA Operational Safety Audit, an international audit of an airline's safety management and operations. Every IATA member must pass it.More in the glossary audit, and its small Boeing fleet has been cut off from the manufacturer since 2022. We score it 53.

Confidence is low. ALROSA publishes no fleet count, and Russian incident data has largely stopped reaching outside sources since 2021.

The 2014 helicopter loss

On 14 October 2014 a Mi-8T from ALROSA's Polyarny base was flying in the Zhigansk district of Yakutia with 5 crew and 11 passengers. The captain landed it on a site chosen from the air, misjudged the landing and destroyed the helicopter. No one died.

The Interstate Aviation Committee (MAK) did not stop at the landing. It found that the captain was most likely drunk, and that he had decided to fly in that state. The airport medic at Polyarny had not told the duty controller that the captain had been barred from flying. An acting flight commander who had been told about the alcohol did nothing to stop the departure, and the rest of the crew did not intervene. MAK called the airline's safety management system "not functioning". The helicopter was also over its maximum weight, because the cargo papers at Zhigansk were drawn up without weighing the load.

That finding matters more than the damage. A system that lets a captain known to be unfit take off with passengers has failed at the most basic level. We have found no later case like it, but we also have little data after 2021.

Other events

• Suntar district, 8 August 2024. A Mi-8T on forest-fire work was damaged on its way to a landing site picked from the air, about 95 km north-east of Suntar. None of the 3 crew and 8 passengers was hurt. MAK finished its investigation in July 2025.
• Near Yakutsk, 17 June 2023. An ALROSA helicopter carrying 21 passengers made a forced landing in a forest clearing about 90 km from Yakutsk. Polar Airlines sent a Mi-8 with rescuers, and the passengers were flown to Yakutsk. No injuries were reported, and we found no published cause.
• Verkhne-Molodo, 2 March 2017. A Mi-8MTV-1 carrying 19 shift workers, 3 crew and 2 technicians was damaged near the Verkhne-Molodo landing site in northern Yakutia. No one was hurt. MAK published its final report in October 2020.
• Polyarny, 11 August 2016. An An-2 biplane on an aeromagnetic survey flight ran off the side of the runway after landing in a crosswind, and its left main gear failed. MAK blamed poorly coordinated hand-over of the controls from the copilot to the captain, and noted that neither the aircraft manual nor ALROSA's own documents covered that hand-over.
• Izhma, 7 September 2010. A Tu-154 from Polyarny to Moscow lost all electrical power three and a half hours into the flight, taking out its navigation and fuel pumps. The crew dumped fuel, found an abandoned military airfield with a 1,400-metre runway, and landed. The jet ran about 180 metres into the forest. All 81 people were unhurt, and the Investigative Committee reported only minor damage. The crew was praised for the landing. This is outside our 10-year incident window, so it is described here but not scored.
• 2018 to 2021. AeroInside logged a rejected take-off after an engine failure on a Boeing 737-800 at St Petersburg in May 2018, electrical problems on a 737-800 near Syktyvkar in March 2019 and an engine shutdown on a 737-700 out of Novosibirsk in February 2021. Each ended safely.

Fleet and sanctions

ALROSA's fleet page lists Boeing 737-700s and 737-800s for the scheduled network, An-24RV and An-38 turboprops for regional routes, and Mi-8 and Mi-26 helicopters for charter and industrial work. It gives no numbers. The Boeings in the 2018 to 2021 incident reports carried Irish registrations (EI-), meaning they were leased from Western owners. Since 2022 Boeing parts and support have been cut off for every Russian airline, and the European Commission listed Russian carriers because Rosaviatsia let them keep flying such aircraft without valid certificates of airworthiness.

Oversight

ALROSA (AOC 230) is on the EU Air Safety ListEU Air Safety ListThe European Commission's list of airlines banned or restricted from flying in EU airspace because they do not meet international safety standards.More in the glossary of 9 June 2026. It is not an IATA member, so it has no IOSAIOSAThe IATA Operational Safety Audit, an international audit of an airline's safety management and operations. Every IATA member must pass it.More in the glossary audit to point to, and ICAO has had a Significant Safety Concern on Russia since June 2022. We score oversight 20, the same as Yakutia Airlines and Pobeda, which are also listed and have no IOSA.

Before you fly ALROSA

• Prefer the Boeing flights where you can. The scheduled 737 service between Mirny, Polyarny and the big cities is the best-documented part of the airline. Helicopter and An-2 work is where all four of its accidents since 2014 happened.
• On a helicopter, watch the load. In 2014 nobody weighed the cargo. If you fly a Mi-8 to a field site, it is reasonable to ask whether bags and freight were weighed and tied down.
• Allow for winter. Winters at Mirny and Udachny are long and very cold, and de-icing delays are normal.

How we scored it

The accident record (80) sits at the floor of our band for airlines with no fatal accident in 15 years: no deaths, but a helicopter loss with a likely drunk captain and a safety system MAK called non-functioning, plus three more accidents with damage in 2016, 2017 and 2024. Oversight (20) reflects the EU ban and no IOSAIOSAThe IATA Operational Safety Audit, an international audit of an airline's safety management and operations. Every IATA member must pass it.More in the glossary, the fleet (32) is Boeing jets without support and old Soviet types, and the incident record (50) shows technical faults handled well before the data runs out in 2021. For the other big airline of the same republic, see Polar Airlines.