Russia plans civil jet output after delay on US sanctions

Russia plans to begin manufacturing the first domestic medium-range passenger jet since the Soviet era next year, after US sanctions delayed the project by as much as 18 months. “We had to create our own production and currently we have created the material and we have made up our own wing using our material,” Rostec State Corp. CEO Sergey Chemezov said. American companies had supplied a subsidiary of Rostec -- Russia’s main defense contractor -- with wing composite components up until the US imposed measures against the unit in 2018. Chemezov, who served with Vladimir Putin in the KGB in East Germany, has been blacklisted by the US since 2014 in response to the Ukraine crisis. The new US administration hasn’t shown a tendency to ease the sanctions, according to Chemezov. The jetliner, known as MS-21, flew its maiden flight in December with Russian-built Aviadvigatel PD-14 engines, and is currently undergoing certification tests. The first post-Soviet Russian airliner, the Sukhoi Superjet, was developed as a competitor to shorter-range regional jets from foreign manufacturers such as Canada’s Bombardier and Brazil’s Embraer. It was involved in two fatal accidents in its first decade of use and has been criticized by commercial operators for frequent groundings because of technical faults and maintenance issues.<br/>