We hate to do this to you, Aeroflot. We really do. But we have to add this to our string of recent Aeroflot bashings. You know the Aeroflot-Nord (an Aeroflot subsidiary) Boeing 737 that took a nosedive near the Ural mountains in Perm last autumn, killing all 88 people onboard? Well, not only have the reasons for the crash been determined as “poor training,” lack of preparedness, and the subsequent “disorientation” of the crew, but the crew commander’s blood just tested positive for alcohol in a forensic study. The revelation casts the previous drunken-pilot story in an entirely different light.

While the official commission investigating the downed flight doesn’t name alcohol as the primary factor behind the crash, it does cite the crew commander’s “overall tiredness” as running “counter to established standards.” And needless to say, the excuse used by Aeroflot officials in the last saga, that a pilot only has to push one button and the plane flies itself, did not apply here. A graphic re-enactment of the disaster shows the plane flipping over mid-air before plunging downward. The crew, who had not been properly trained to fly a 737, became disoriented when they encountered thick clouds at night. The aircraft's autopilot and automated throttle control were switched off. The flight recorder caught the commander’s last words: “You see it yourself, I can't...”

In sum: disturbing. This on the relative coattails (in airplane years) of a ’94 crash that left 70 dead after the pilot’s teenage son had accidentally switched off the autopilot in the flight cabin.

Immediately after last fall’s Aeroflot-Nord crash, Aeroflot officials announced they would be stripping the subsidiary of the Aeroflot name. At this point, that would be doing them a favor. Let’s hope this is our last installment of alarming Russian aircraft news.

Alcohol found in blood of Russia air crash pilot[Reuters]