In the previous posts on Russian air safety, I looked at Aeroflot's record as well as those of the carriers that were spun off after Aeroflot was reorganized. Some have good safety records, and some not.

So what can you do to check out the carrier you will be flying? Ask your agency which carriers fly to the region that is likely to issue your referral. Then jump on the Internet to Wikipedia's main Russian airlines page, which lists many, but not all, carriers. On that, for example, I could find the listing for Transaero, which I flew from Moscow to Sakhalin Island and back twice in 2005.

Wikipedia links to Transaero's English-language Web site, and on it I could learn that Transaero flies all late-model Boeing aircraft. (Full disclosure: I have two good friends who are Boeing engineers and adoptive parents.) All the flights were lovely, and the in-flight personnel were very solicitous of my younger son. They even gave him his own kid's backpack.

Not every one of the new Russian carriers has an English-language site, so try using AltaVista's Babel Fish Translation site to check out the airlines that don't.

Wikipedia has a page for UTAir, the carrier involved in the Samara crash. There is no reference to UTAir having been recently barred from flying in Europe, but the list of the carrier's aircraft could give cause for pause: Apart from two-late-model jets made by France's ATR, they are all old Soviet workhorses.

Pulkovo, the St. Petersburg-based carrier that had a flight go down in the Ukraine last year, isn't on the main airlines page on Wikipedia. But it does have a page on the site, complete with a listing of its current fleet. In addition to the Soviet-era workhorses, it also has five Boeing 737-500s, planes that could be as much as 20 years old. Plenty of Boeing 737-500s are still in service with U.S. carriers, though; I flew on one of them earlier this month.

And what if none of this makes you any less jittery? I recently wrote about five tips to help you pick a region from which to seek a referral. I didn't make transportation a part of those tips, but if you are worried, you can ask if an agency operates in Moscow or St. Petersburg, big cities that you can fly to directly from the United States. Or ask if the regions are easily accessible by train.

--Part One: How Safe Is Russian Air Travel?
--Part Two: Russia's New Carriers And Safety