Leonid Bershidsky, Columnist

How to Fly in Russia and Survive

A fatal plane crash in Russia highlights the dismal safety record of the country's smaller airlines.

November 18, 2013 at 8:45 PM UTC

Leonid Bershidsky, formerly Bloomberg Opinion’s Europe columnist, is a member of the Bloomberg News Automation Team. He recently published Russian translations of George Orwell’s “1984” and Franz Kafka’s “The Trial.”

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Russia's dismal air-safety record made the news again this weekend, when a 23-year-old Boeing 737-500 crashedand exploded at the Kazan airport 450 miles east of Moscow, killing all 44 passengers and six crew.

The tragedy caused much anger and speculation, and highlighted the unaccountable risk of flying in Russia these days. Center-left politician Dmitri Gudkov wroteon his LiveJournal blog that about 75 million air tickets a year are sold in Russia, compared with close to 1 billion in the U.S. Despite the relatively small passenger volumes, Russia is secondin the world in fatal plane crashes after the U.S.