USA allowed its passenger planes to fly near Crimea: is it safe

American authorities allowed their planes to fly over the Black Sea near Crimea. As a result, the entire central and eastern part of the Black Sea opens up for US passenger aviation, over which important routes from Asia to Europe lie. But who will control these flights - Russia or Ukraine? Writes about this Air force.

Photo: Shutterstock

In the second half of October, the American Federal Aviation Administration issued permission to fly in the Simferopol flight information region. This does not mean that the US authorities recognized Russia’s rights to regulate air traffic over Crimea. Rather, on the contrary, they confirmed the powers of the Ukrainian air traffic controllers who manage this air navigation area from Odessa.

The Simferopol flight information region is an air navigation zone that includes the Kherson region, the Crimean peninsula and the entire central part of the sea. The control center that served the Simferopol FIR was located in the building of the Simferopol airport before the annexation.

During the operation to annex the Crimean peninsula in 2014, Russia was one of the first to take control of the airport. Ukraine then announced the closure of all airports in Crimea and the FIR regional center in Simferopol.

Control of the FIR was taken over by dispatchers from Ukrainian centers in neighboring Odessa and Dnieper. But soon the Simferopol dispatch service started working again - Russia opened it, inviting dispatchers from the previous, Ukrainian service to work.

Russian and Ukrainian dispatchers tried for some time to control the FIR, each from their own side, but gradually the situation calmed down - only Russian airlines now fly to Crimea, and flights over the peninsula are controlled by Russian dispatchers in Simferopol.

International routes that run over the Black Sea are de facto run by Ukrainian dispatchers located in Odessa.

This situation has existed for several years, but until now few have dared to fly over the Black Sea near the Crimean Peninsula - airlines and national aviation agencies feared that due to the high militarization of Crimea, the risk of misidentification of the aircraft may be too great.

Ukraine has declared the airspace over Crimea closed. The decision of the American authorities changed this situation.

Where can you fly

The change in the flight restriction regime for American aircraft in the Simferopol FIR was adopted by the Federal Aviation Administration and the US Department of Transportation. It was published on October 16. The document is amendments to the Special Federal Aviation Regulations (SFAR 113), which were adopted in 2018. These regulations generally establish special flight conditions for US civil aviation in certain regions.

The new edition of SFAR 113 talks about changes to the no-fly zones in two flight information regions - Simferopol and Dneprovsky.

The 2018 decree established one large zone, which included Crimea as well as eastern Ukraine, where fighting continued between the Ukrainian army and pro-Russian militias.

From October 27, 2020, it will be divided into two - the zone above the combat area in eastern Ukraine will remain in the Dnieper FIR, and in Simferopol it will be reduced to Crimea and its coastal waters.

The Ukrainian air traffic regulation agency Ukraerorukh has published a map of the changes on its website. At the same time, the agency has not changed the status of the airspace over Crimea - it still remains closed to international air transport.

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Merit of Ukraine

The new version of the rules states that the main danger to air traffic over Crimea is the activities of the Russian Federation, which annexed the peninsula and established its flight information area within the old FIR.

The requirement of Russian dispatchers to follow their instructions conflicts with the requirements of the Ukrainian ones, the document says. In addition, the danger of misidentification of civil aircraft by the military remains.

The reason for the cancellation of flight restrictions is called the activities of Ukraine, which did everything to ensure flight safety.

“While the Federal Aviation Administration expects the Russian Federation to continue to assert unlawful territorial claims and maintain an alternative control center, Ukraine has demonstrated a strong commitment to taking appropriate measures to minimize residual safety risks in the Simferopol FIR given these circumstances,” the document says .

Ukraine, as noted in the document, constantly provides international aviation organizations with the results of monitoring risks on international air routes over the Black Sea, reports on all incidents and measures to eliminate them.

According to the new edition of the rules, “as a result of Ukraine’s persistent efforts,” the number of recorded incidents related to “Russian aggression in Ukraine” in civil aviation has dropped to zero over three and a half years of flights along the Black Sea routes in the Simferopol FIR.

Who is responsible for the Simferopol FIR?

Officially, Russia has not reacted in any way to the change in American flight rules and the statements contained in their text.

Earlier, the report of the Federal Air Transport Agency on the results of work in 2018 stated that the agency on an ongoing basis sends, through the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, diplomatic notes to the Ukrainian Embassy in Russia “with demands that Ukraine stop unilaterally establishing temporary danger zones over the waters of the Azov and Black Seas in all altitudes at certain time periods."

The rationale, as follows from the report, is as follows: “the above temporary danger zones fall within the Simferopol flight information region, where responsibility for air traffic services rests with the Russian Federation.”

Meanwhile, the new edition of the rules of the American Aviation Administration states that it is Ukraine that bears full responsibility for the provision of air navigation services in the Simferopol FIR. According to the document, this is recognized by the Council of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) and the Aviation of the European Region.

EUROCONTROL, the European organization for the safety of air navigation, also holds Ukraine responsible for the Simferopol FIR.

This is particularly stated in the Ukrainian report Local Single Sky Implementation (“Implementation within the local airspace”, LSSIP), compiled based on the results of 2019. The report is issued annually for each country that cooperates with Eurocontrol as part of the Single European Sky initiative to create a pan-European air navigation space.

The Ukrainian LSSIP-2019 states that the organization of air traffic in the Simferopol flight information region is carried out by the Odessa and Dnieper air traffic control centers, and the Simferopol FIR itself is assigned to Ukraine. Russia does not participate in this program, and no such document is being prepared for it.

Finally, in the ICAO list of flight information regions, FIR "Simferopol" belongs to Ukraine.

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Important region

Quite a few aviation routes pass over the Black Sea. One of the arguments for the partial lifting of the ban on flights in the Simferopol FIR, which is mentioned in the American document, was the impossibility of using the M747 route - the document does not specify where exactly this route lies, it only says that it partially passes in the area of ​​the Simferopol FIR, which was closed to American aircraft.

Some of these routes are so important that in December 2016 the European Aviation Safety Agency even allowed the use of two of them (L851 and M856), despite the fact that they partially pass through the Simferopol FIR - M856 in the western part of the FIR runs from north to south , and L851 in the southern part of the FIR runs from southeast to northwest.

“If you don’t fly through this zone, then you have to make a long detour, and on certain routes you fly longer, spend more kerosene, flights are more expensive, and you lose a competitive advantage over companies that do not limit themselves in anything,” Roman Gusarov, editor-in-chief of the Avia.ru portal, told the BBC.

According to the expert, there is no politics in the decision of the American departments - it is dictated only by economic reasons.

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