OREANDA-NEWS. June 05, 2015. UTair – Helicopter Services senior flight instructor Sergey Smirnyagin has been recognized by the Helicopter Industry Association with the Best in the Profession award. Mr Smirmyagin also won the internet poll for Pilot of the Year.

Mr Smirnyagin has been with UTair for 37 years and is a first class civil aviation pilot. In his career, he has logged 16,500 flight hours of incident-free helicopter operations, including operations with the Mi-26T, the helicopter with larger takeoff weight than of any other rotorcraft in the world. Mr Smirnyagin himself initiated improvements to Mi-26T flight operations. In particular, he lead development of procedural recommendations for aircrews to minimize consequences in the event of a centrifugal blade droop stop failure aboard the Mi-26T. As a flight instructor, Mr Smirnyagin has trained dozens of pilots.

Mr Smirnyagin’s impeccable performance record has been recognized with a 1st Class Insignia for Incident-Free Flight Hours Logged, an Aeroflot Excellence insignia and a letter of commendation from the General Director of UTair Aviation.

UTair employees have been frequently recognized with various aviation awards. In 2014 UTair Mi-8 aircraft captain Gennady Bobkov won the Pilot of the Year award, while UTair – Engineering MRO and avionics maintenance engineer Igor Kozhevnikov was named the Engineer of the Year. In 2013, Tu-154 captain Evgeny Setin and senior flight instructor Sergey Shtefan were recognized by the Ulyanovsk regional government with an annual civil aviation award.

In 2014 more than 170 UTair employees were recognized with industry and corporate awards, letters of commendation and medals. UTair is proud to employ nine Merited Pilots of the Russian Federation and one Hero of the Russian Federation.

UTair Aviation is the world’s largest airline by fleet size and capacity with more than 350 helicopters of various types, primarily of the Mil and Airbus Helicopters families. UTair helicopters serve customers on four continents. For over 40 years UTair has maintained cooperation with leading Russian oil and gas companies, who continue to constitute the airline's main portfolio of customers for helicopter operations.

Since 1991, UTair has provided air transport services for the humanitarian missions of the United Nations and has remained the largest air transport service provider for the UN since 2001. The capabilities of the UTair fleet and the professionalism of its crews guarantee safe, high quality air transport operations of any degree of complexity in all geographical and climate zones of the world.

The Best in the Profession award is an annual recognition of industry talent established by the Helicopter Association International in 2008 to improve the status of helicopter industry professionals.