Russia's Yak-130 trainer jets face rising failures due to makeshift engine parts, analyst says

Military and political observer Oleksandr Kovalenko shared his analysis on his Telegram channel.

Kovalenko attributes the latest incident to a technical malfunction, which, in his view, is not surprising. He notes that the Yak-130 is currently the most accident-prone combat trainer aircraft. Just recently, in May, a Yak-130 crashed in Bangladesh due to an engine fire.

Kovalenko explains that the AI-222-25 engines used in the Yak-130 have been produced at Moscow's Salut MMPP since 2004, in collaboration with Ukraine's Progress Design Bureau, named after A. Ivchenko. While Progress played a key role in developing the AI-222-25, Salut primarily assembled the engines from pre-made parts supplied by Ukraine.

However, after Russia's 2014 invasion of Ukraine, the supply of these parts ceased. In response, the Russians began unlicensed and improvised production. As a result, the current AI-222-25 engines are being assembled from uncertified components, making the Yak-130 a makeshift aircraft.

This reliance on substandard parts has led to frequent reports of malfunctions. In 2021, Rostec, a central force in Russia’s industrial and defense sectors, opened a service center specifically for Yak-130 engine maintenance, as these aircraft were depleting their engines at an accelerated rate due to their flawed construction. According to Kovalenko, the wear on the AI-222-25 engines has increased significantly, even though the number of flight hours logged by these aircraft has not risen.

"The wear and tear are due to poor-quality, makeshift engine manufacturing," Kovalenko emphasizes. Despite this, Russia has no alternative to the flawed Yak-130, and it is unlikely to develop one soon.