Azimuth

Is Azimuth safe?

Azimuth has flown since 2017 without a fatal accident, and its worst event, a hard landing and fire at Antalya in November 2024, ended with all 95 people out on the slides. That is a good start for a young airline, and it is the main reason Azimuth scores 56, one point above Rossiya (55). The rest of the picture is weaker. Every one of its 19 Sukhoi Superjet 100s depends on an engine that lost its French support in 2022, its regulator is the one behind the Russian EU listings, 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, and its home airport at Rostov-on-Don has been shut to civil flights since the war in Ukraine began.

The Antalya fire

On 24 November 2024, flight A4-5051 from Sochi touched down hard on runway 36R at Antalya. The left main gear was damaged, fuel spilled onto the runway and a fire broke out around the left engine. The fire was put out quickly, and the 89 passengers and 6 crew left by the slides. Rosaviatsia reported no deaths or injuries. Some passengers later filed a group claim against the airline, saying they had inhaled smoke.

Azimuth said windshear caused the hard landing, while a Russian aviation Telegram channel blamed crew error. Turkey's accident board (UEIM) leads the investigation. Russia's Investigative Committee opened a criminal case for breach of air safety rules, which is common in Russia after an accident and does not by itself mean anyone was at fault. No final report had been published by October 2026. The aircraft, RA-89085, had entered service in February 2017. In the three months before the fire it had returned to the stand for a technical fault, rejected a take-off because of engine vibration and made a forced landing after a hydraulic failure that damaged its gear doors, according to Novaya Gazeta Europe.

We weigh the accident as damage without a confirmed hull lossHull lossAn accident in which an aircraft is destroyed or damaged beyond economic repair. People may or may not be hurt.More in the glossary and with the cause still open. A young airline with a clean record would usually score about 88 here; Antalya brings Azimuth to 84.

Incidents that matter

Two older events say more about the airline's own operation than about the aircraft:

• Sochi, March 2021. A Superjet from Yaroslavl touched down at 2.64 g with both pilots on the controls, bounced and veered off the centreline, though it stayed on the runway. The crew told investigators they had not felt a hard landing. The jet flew 12 more sectors over two days before it was taken out of service for three and a half days.
• Near Rostov, October 2021. At FL340 the captain, trying to clear a satellite-navigation warning, pressed the alternate gear extension button by mistake. The gear came down above its speed limit and the autopilot climbed about 450 feet, setting off a collision warning at the controller's desk because another aircraft was 1,000 feet above in the opposite direction. The jet diverted to Rostov.

Rosaviatsia reported both events, which is more than most Russian airlines' records show.

The check after Antalya went further. Rostransnadzor inspected Azimuth from 28 November to 11 December 2024 and issued five orders on flight safety and compliance, due by the end of February 2025. Izvestia, quoting the inspection report, said inspectors found more than 20 violations: three flights with no record of a suspected hard landing, at least six landings above 2 g, bounced touchdowns on about 12% of landings in the first 11 months of 2024, more than 19 approaches that exceeded the sink-rate limit without a go-around, and one jet that flew five more commercial sectors after a hard landing without an inspection. Azimuth denied hiding any hard landings and said it gave regulators everything they asked for. Hard landings matter more on the Superjet than on most jets, because a heavy touchdown can push the main gear into the wing fuel tank, as at Antalya.

On 18 January 2026 a Superjet from Mineralnye Vody ran off the runway after landing at Makhachkala. No one was hurt, and the transport prosecutor opened a check. Two Azimuth Superjets have also lost engine cowlings in flight; in both cases Rosaviatsia found that maintenance staff had not closed the cowling latches (The Moscow Times, June 2026). The AeroInside log ends in February 2022 with a rejected take-off at Kazan for engine vibration. Since then we have only press reports, such as those on the Antalya jet.

One type, one engine

Azimuth flies only Superjets: 19 of them in May 2026, in the original version with Western parts and the French-Russian SaM146 engine. The type has modern fly-by-wireFly-by-wireA flight control system in which the pilot's inputs go to computers, which then move the control surfaces. Many such systems also stop unsafe manoeuvres.More in the glossary controls, and Azimuth's fleet is young. But the SaM146 had trouble before 2022 too: in 2018 Yakutia Airlines reported design-related engine failures that grounded its Superjets for months. Its French half stopped support after the invasion. That is a full cut-off of factory support, which under our rules takes about 25 points off the fleet score, the same as for Russian airlines flying Boeing and Airbus jets.

The airline plans to buy about 31 upgraded SJ-100s with Russian engines and parts over seven years, and to consider 20 MC-21s, and it is building a hangar for them. None had been delivered by October 2026.

Oversight

Azimuth is not 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. Most of the 22 Russian airlines on it were listed in 2022 because Rosaviatsia let them keep flying foreign-owned aircraft without valid certificates of airworthiness, and Azimuth's fleet is Russian-built and Russian-registered. We found no US export denial order against it. But the regulator is the same: ICAO posted a Significant Safety Concern against Russia on 15 June 2022, and Russia was still contesting it in 2025. Azimuth is not an IATA member and 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 we could confirm. We score oversight 25: above the 20 for Pobeda, which is listed and has no IOSA, and level with listed airlines that do have IOSA.

Flying Azimuth from southern Russia

• Expect short-notice airport closures. Azimuth's bases at Mineralnye Vody, Sochi and Krasnodar and its routes through the Rostov region lie in or near the airspace that EASA's bulletin 2025-01 warns about, valid until January 2027, with drone attacks and GNSS jamming. Leave slack before an onward connection.
• A delay for a technical check is not a bad sign. On a single-type fleet with scarce engines, a spare aircraft may be hours away, but a grounding is the system working. The 2021 Sochi case, where a jet kept flying after a hard landing, was the opposite.

How we scored it

The accident record (84) is free of deaths and hull lossesHull lossAn accident in which an aircraft is destroyed or damaged beyond economic repair. People may or may not be hurt.More in the glossary for nine years, with the Antalya fire still under investigation. Oversight (25) reflects Russia's open ICAO concern 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, offset by Azimuth not being on the EU list. The fleet (52) is young but tied to an engine without factory support, and incidents (38) include a hard landing that went unnoticed for 12 flights, the regulator's orders after Antalya and a runway excursionRunway excursionWhen an aircraft leaves the runway surface during take-off or landing, either off the end (an overrun) or off the side (a veer-off).More in the glossary in 2026. For the largest Superjet operator, see Rossiya.