The Tu-154 that crashed near Sochi was flying for 33 years.

The Tu-154 that crashed near Sochi was 33 years old, but that does not mean that the plane had technical problems and its service life had not yet expired, the specialized committee in the Federation Council said.

The crashed TU154 plane was 33 years old.

The plane that crashed in Sochi was manufactured in 1983 and had a total of 6,689 flight hours, according to the Defense Ministry. The last overhaul took place in December 2014, and the plane underwent scheduled maintenance in September this year.

The captain of the crashed Tu-154 was pilot first class Roman Volkov, who had over three thousand hours of flight experience. "Yes, 33 years of service is a long time, but it is not yet over. At this age of service, there are no dangerous factors such as metal fatigue," said Senator Sergei Kalashnikov, Deputy Chairman of the Federation Council's Economic Policy Committee.

The senator noted that in both civil and military aviation there is a system of regular inspections aimed at removing from service aircraft that have changed their characteristics due to exceeding their maximum allowable life. "This is not the case. The specific technical problems of this aircraft are not related to the age, but to other issues," Mr. Kalashnikov said.

According to Sputnik