"Tu-154 and Tu-134 jets will [eventually] be discharged from the fleets of passenger airlines," Igor Levitin said. "But they still have about five years to go. Russia has got about 270 such jets, and there is no alternative to replace them with at this point."
Levitin leads a government panel probing the August 2006 crash of a Tu-154 jetliner in Ukraine, one of three major air disasters involving Russian planes and airports in 2006.
The plane, operated by St. Petersburg's Pulkovo Airlines, crashed August 22 near the eastern Ukrainian city of Donetsk while carrying out a flight from the Black Sea resort of Anapa. All the 170 people on board - 160 passengers and a ten-member crew - died in the crash.
According to a report released by the investigator panel Saturday, that particular crash was the result of crew error rather than a technical failure. Yet, Russia's aging commercial aircraft fleet is widely seen as the main danger to air safety.
The Russian government has recently launched projects to replace the old Tu-154 and Tu-134 models with more technologically advanced SuperJet-100 and MS-21 mid-haulers. But these aircraft will not enter service until 2012.
