Tracking the 400+ Russian planes refusing to acknowledge Bermuda's certificate revocation
Was revoking the airworthiness of Russian jets "enough"? Are Russian jets still flying around the world?
You may have heard in the news in the past few days that Bermuda has revoked all airworthiness certifications for Russian aircraft registered in Bermuda. I decided to find out how many I could find that are registered in Bermuda, and more importantly, if they're still flying or not.
According to Wikipedia, there are several airlines - large and small - operating in Russia. My research shows that many of these planes, 400+, are registered in Bermuda. If you're unaware of how aircraft registrations work, it is based on the country - and depending on which country it is registered in, the aircraft is given a registration number. That registration number has a prefix of a letter. For instance, planes and helicopters registered in the US have "N" as the prefix. All aircraft registered in the US follow that format: "N123A" for example. Aircraft registered in Bermuda have one of two prefixes. Each aircraft registered there will have either VP-B or VQ-B. Here's what I've found:
- Aeroflot Russian Airlines. Aeroflot has 185 aircraft registered to Bermuda with either VP or VQ registration. They have several that are registered in Russia, too, but we aren't considering those. If you want to track the Aeroflot planes yourself, please do. Click: here.
- Aurora Airlines. Aurora has 19 airplanes that I could find, 8 of which have Bermuda registrations. Track just the Aurora planes here.
- Azur Air. Azur Air has 21 planes registered with Bermuda. None of these are currently flying but for the sake of due diligence, track those here.
- Northwind Airlines has 24 aircraft that I could find registered in Bermuda. Only one is currently airborne, but this will be good to click on at later dates & times. Track Northwind here.
- Pobeda is a smaller airline but with several registered in Bermuda. Track the Pobeda planes here.
- Red Wings Airlines. Another small one with nothing currently airborne. Again, to track at a later date, click here.
- Rossiya Russian Airlines. This is a bigger Russian airline, perhaps number 2 in the country behind Aeroflot. I've got 43 jets registered in Bermuda. Track them here.
- S7 Airlines is another bigger Russian airline. They've got 63 that I could find that have a Bermuda registration. Follow the link to track S7 planes here.
- Ural Airlines is a small/medium Russian airline with 42 Bermuda-registered aircraft. Track those here.
- Yakutia Airlines. This is a smaller one. There are 8 registered in Bermuda that are flying around without airworthiness certifications, including a flight 15 hours ago to Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. Track the fleet here.
- Yamal Airlines. I found 23 of their fleet is registered in Bermuda. Track that fleet here.
It does seem that a large portion of Russian airlines flying around are Bermuda-registered and doing so without airworthiness certifications. I don't know why they're allowed to fly. In Russia, I guess you can get away with that; but why can VQ-BMP be allowed to fly without that certification from Stockholm to Halifax and be allowed to land? Was it seized? I hope so.
Each of the above screenshots is from globe.adsbexchange.com. I'm not affiliated with them in any way, however I did make a Chrome Extension that works well with their map & UI. You can get it here.
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