by Georgiy Voloshin (05/01/2013 issue of the CACI Analyst)

On April 23, Kazakhstani media reported that a Russian-built Mig-31 military aircraft owned by Kazakhstan’s Ministry of Defense had crashed during a training flight near a small village in Karaganda province in the country’s center. Although both pilots took urgent measures to be catapulted out of the cockpit, the aircraft’s captain did not survive his wounds after an unsuccessful landing. While the prosecutor’s office opened an official investigation, the preliminary assessments of the incident showed that the onboard navigation system had malfunctioned. The Ministry of Defense quickly reacted to the news stating that the aircraft had undergone capital repairs in December 2012 at a Russian assembly plant in Rzhevsk and was under maintenance warranty at the moment of its crash. Two days later, Askar Buldeshev, the Deputy Commander in Chief of Kazakhstan’s Air Defense Forces, was arrested by the country’s law enforcement agents on charges of corruption related to the purchase of military equipment from third parties.