Algeria military plane crash: 257 dead near Algiers

[Zotobom]

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-43724941

(Figured there'd be a thread for this by now but I couldn't find one, if this is a double thread I apologize)

[Grenadiac]

Why does anyone even fly IL-76s? They have one of the worst incident rates I've ever heard of. 80 hull losses out of 960 aircraft.

[Big D Duchovny]

It's probably a combination of "We don't have the money to fly anything better" and "We don't have the money to maintain these planes so they go down even more often" I'd imagine.

[Toybasher]

IL-76 is modular and can be converted into many different aircraft, including into the A-50 (NATO reporting name: "Mainstay") AWACS aircraft.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c6/Beriev_A-50_black_white.jpg

[Viper123_SWE]

The thing about Soviet equipment is that it can last forever if maintained well and that there's alot of spare parts to get ahold of. At least late Soviet-era gear.

[Chryseus]

Almost all of those have been linked to poor maintenance or pilot error, the plane itself is very robust, being mainly used in poorer countries 80 hull losses isn't surprising.