Superjet 100 - Safety
The Superjet 100 did not have a demonstrably better safety record than its regional jet peers; on the contrary, its record was more exposed to risk, more sensitive to context (operator, maintenance, environment), and more vulnerable to supply chain and parts issues. The Sukhoi Superjet 100 (also known as SSJ100) has had a number of high-profile accidents and hull-loss events since it entered service. As of May 2025, there had been four confirmed hull-loss accidents, three of which resulted in fatalities, plus more recent incidents of fire or damage. Some sources count up to five, depending on how incidents are classified. Over its operating life, there had also been numerous non-hull-loss incidents, mechanical or structural issues, and reports of fuselage defects.
Taking rough estimates at face value, the Superjet’s implied fatal accident rate (~3 per million) was about 100 times higher than the Embraer E-Jets’ estimated ~0.03 per million. However, that comparison must be taken with extreme caution. The Superjet fleet has far fewer flights, so each accident has much more statistical weight, and a few additional accidents make big changes. The operating environments, regulatory oversight, maintenance practices, and pilot training differ wildly between operators (especially many SSJs operate in Russia under sanctions and supply constraints). In many cases, accidents are driven more by system-level “ecosystem” risk than the design itself.
Public sources often conflate “hull-loss accidents” and “fatal accidents”, or use inconsistent denominators (e.g. “per million departures” vs “per million flights” vs “per million hours”), so cross-model comparisons are methodologically shaky. Some sources are less rigorous, relying on news reports, extrapolation, or industry commentary rather than systematically audited safety databases. So while it’s not a precisely settled figure, the existing publicly circulated estimates suggest the Superjet 100’s fatal accident rate was orders of magnitude worse than that of Embraer’s E-Jet family. But the uncertainties are large, and many safety analysts would hesitate to assert one was truly “100× less safe” without deeper normalization (same regions, same maintenance, same flight hours, etc.).
Comparing the safety record of the Superjet 100 to other regional jets was difficult, because the sample size (number in service, hours flown, operating environments) was much smaller, but the evidence suggests it was not clearly safer than its peers and likely faces elevated risks in certain operating contexts. Accident and incident statistics are heavily influenced by exposure (how many flight hours or departures a model has), geographical and operational environment (weather, terrain, air traffic control infrastructure, regulatory oversight), and maintenance regimes and operator practices. A newer or less-widely used aircraft might show a higher accident rate simply because it flies in more challenging or less mature aviation markets, rather than because of inherent design flaws.
More established regional jet families—such as Embraer’s E-Jet series (E170 / E190 family) or Bombardier’s CRJ series—have far larger fleets and flight experience, giving a more stabilized baseline for safety data. In the list of aircraft by crash rates (non-zero) compiled by AirSafe, for example, the Embraer 170/190 family was cited as one of the models with the lowest fatal crash rates (˜ 0.03 per million departures) as of the data cutoff. That said, that figure was based on historical data, often across many decades and many more departures than the Superjet has accumulated.
Statistical summaries produced by the FAA (and similarly by Boeing) typically present accident (or fatal accident) rates normalized per million departures (or flight cycles) for commercial jets overall. Those summaries show a long-term downward trend in accident rates for commercial aviation as a whole, thanks to improved technology, better training, maintenance practices, and regulation. However, these aggregate rates tend to smooth over variation among individual models, especially newer or sparse ones.
In relative terms, the Superjet’s safety performance appeared less proven and more volatile than those of its mature competitors. Its accident record was more visible, partly because each incident in a smaller fleet has a larger statistical significance. Some analysts argue that the Superjet’s safety was “comparable” to other commercial aircraft when average exposure was considered, but that claim was hard to reliably validate given the limited data. Additionally, the Superjet faces extra challenges not as typical for Western aircraft in comparable roles: sanctions and supply chain disruptions (especially post-2022) complicate sourcing spare parts, aircraft servicing, and system upgrades. These constraints may degrade reliability or raise operational risk over time, especially in more demanding environments.
The Superjet 100’s fatal-event rate works out to roughly three per million flights, which was high for a modern jet. Yakovlev’s own 2024 operational summary said the SSJ100 fleet had accumulated “more than 1,745,000 flight hours” across “over 977,000” flights since entering service; across that span there had been three fatal accidents (Mount Salak 2012, Aeroflot 1492 in 2019, and Gazpromavia 9608 in 2024). Dividing three fatal events by 977,000 flights yields ˜3.07 fatal events per million flights.
Embraer’s E-Jet family (E170/E190) was among the safest large regional jets ever fielded, with AirSafe’s model table showing a fatal crash rate of about 0.03 per million flights—two orders of magnitude lower than the SSJ100’s back-of-the-envelope figure above. AirSafe’s table compiles rates using passenger-fatality events divided by model-specific flight counts; for the E-Jets, it lists 0.03 per million based on ~16.7 million flights.
For Canadair/Bombardier’s CRJ series, AirSafe does not publish a clean rate because the total number of flights was unspecified in its table, though it lists four passenger-fatality events for the family. Independent summaries consistently characterize the CRJ’s record as strong for a high-utilization regional jet, but without a reliable fleet-wide denominator, a per-million-flight figure can’t be responsibly stated from that source. A CRJ estimate using carrier and fleet utilization data would be less precise than the Embraer and SSJ figures.
As further context, global commercial-jet safety today was measured in fractions of an accident per million departures; Airbus’s and ICAO’s annual statistics put recent worldwide accident rates (all jets, all models) around one to three accidents per million departures, with the long-term trend continuing downward. Against that backdrop, the SSJ100’s calculated ˜3 per million fatal-event rate stands out as elevated, whereas the Embraer E-Jets’ ˜0.03 per million remains exemplary.
One of the earliest and most tragic accidents occurred on 9 May 2012, when a Superjet on a demonstration flight in Indonesia collided with Mount Salak in West Java, killing all 45 people aboard (37 passengers and 8 crew). The investigation determined that the flight crew descended into terrain, ignored or misinterpreted terrain-warning alerts, and was distracted by non-operational conversation in the cockpit. This crash was the first hull loss and first fatal accident involving the SSJ100.
On 09 May 2012, a demonstration flight in Indonesia struck a mountain, killing all 45 people on board, in a crash Indonesia blamed on pilot error. The Sukhoi Superjet 100 (SSJ-100) passenger jet slammed into the side of Indonesia’s Mount Salak shortly after take-off. The aircraft hit steep ground at an altitude of 5,200 feet (1,600 meters) on near Jakarta during a demonstration flight. Eight of those on board were Russian, including the flight crew. A preliminary examination of the flight recorder from the aircraft showed that all the systems were functioning properly up until impact, with the Terrain Awareness and Warning System (TAWS) switched on. The pilots may have turned off the alert system in order to speak with the passengers or show them around the cabin. One expert said the pilots may have "stopped taking notice" of the alert system as it was "nearly always on" in mountainious regions.
Another hull loss happened on 21 July 2013 during a test of autoland capability in Iceland. In that incident, the fuselage struck and slid along the runway with the landing gear retracted during a go-around attempt; one of the five crew was injured, but no fatalities.
In October 2018, a Yakutia Airlines SSJ100 slid off the runway while landing at Yakutsk; the landing gear collapsed and the aircraft was damaged beyond repair, but all 92 people on board (87 passengers, 5 crew) survived evacuations without serious injury.
A Sukhoi Superjet 100 burst into flame as it touched ground at Moscow's Sheremetyevo Airport on Sunday 05 May 2019. The Murmansk-bound Sukhoi Superjet, flight SU1492, carrying a crew of six and 73 passengers took off at 2:50 pm GMT from Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport. Shortly after takeoff, the crew sent a distress signal to air traffic control, saying the plane had some technical issues and required the emergency landing. The plane quickly returned to Moscow after one of the aircraft engines caught fire, and landed trailing smoke and fire. Flightradar24 tracking service showed that the aircraft made two circles around Moscow and landed after flying for about 45 minutes.
The crew of the emergency Superjet was forced to land without dropping fuel, because the connection with the dispatchers was completely lost. Pilot Denis Evdokimov was quoted in Russian media Monday as saying that "because of lightning, we had a loss of radio communication." The pilot did not specify whether the plane was struck directly. The plane caught fire after a hard emergency landing. A total of 41 people on board died in the crash-landing. The 37 survivors comprised 33 passengers and four members of the crew. "The aircraft MSN 95135 was produced in August 2017. It was under scheduled maintenance in the beginning of April 2019. Representatives of the Sukhoi Civil Aircraft Company, the manufacturer of the aircraft, are part of the commission conducting the investigation", Sukhoi Civil Aircraft said in a statement. This was the second fatal accident involving the SSJ100, which was widely used in Russia.
A preliminary analysis of black box data in general did not contradict the explanations given by the crew. Indeed, in the eighth minute of the flight, the on-board electronics disconnected, after which the computer control system of the aircraft did not work. The crew operated the aircraft in manual mode. This means that the movements of the joystick (control stick) were transmitted to the control electric motors directly, and not through the on-board computer. In fact, the aircraft maintained control until the end.
Perhaps the most widely reported accident was Aeroflot Flight 1492 in May 2019. The aircraft was struck by lightning after takeoff from Moscow, suffered electrical failures, and then conducted an emergency return to Sheremetyevo. Upon landing, it bounced hard multiple times, the landing gear failed, fuel leaked, and a fire broke out in the rear fuselage. In the ensuing evacuation, 41 of the 78 people aboard lost their lives.
On March 28, 2025, the Interstate Aviation Committee (IAC) published the final report on the results of the investigation into the aviation accident that occurred on May 5, 2019, during the landing of the SSJ-100 aircraft (model RRJ-95B) at Sheremetyevo Airport. During the investigation, the IAC commission thoroughly analyzed issues related to the aircraft's certification and its design's compliance with regulatory requirements. At the commission's request, additional studies and experiments were conducted to identify the causes of the accident and improve flight safety.
According to the Commission's conclusion, the cause of the aviation accident was human error. The Interstate Aviation Committee commission did not identify any design flaws in the SSJ-100 aircraft that would prevent its further operation. The branch of PJSC Yakovlev – Regional Aircraft – provided the IAC Commission with all the necessary materials on the development, certification tests and operation of the RRJ-95 aircraft. The developer accepted the recommendations of the IAC Commission aimed at the safe and regular operation of SSJ-100 aircraft.
A ferry/test flight operated by Gazpromavia crashed near Kolomna, Russia on 12 July 2024. The aircraft, flying lightly or empty, crashed after takeoff, and all three crew members perished. According to preliminary findings, the accident was linked to malfunctioning angle-of-attack sensors that had been incorrectly installed during maintenance.
In addition to those hull-loss events, in November 2024 a Superjet of Azimuth Airlines caught fire after landing at Antalya Airport in Turkey due to a fuel leak (apparently triggered by the left engine contacting the runway). Fortunately, all passengers and crew evacuated safely without casualties. In summary, while the Superjet 100 has had a number of serious accidents, its safety record must be viewed in the context of the hours flown, operating conditions, training, and maintenance practices.
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