Investigators drop charges against air traffic control trainee Svetlana Krivsun in Total chief plane crash at Vnukovo
MOSCOW. Jan 14 (Interfax) - Investigators probing the crash of the Falcon plane which killed the head of the Total company have dropped charges against the trainee air traffic controller, Svetlana Krivsun.
"The criminal prosecution of my client has been discontinued due to the absence of incriminating evidence," her lawyer Murad Musayev told Interfax on Thursday.
He said he learnt about the investigators' decision on Thursday.
It was reported that until recently Krivsun, along with the other suspects in the case, was under travel restrictions, and had been under house arrest until September 21, 2015, during which she suffered a miscarriage.
Overnight on October 21, 2014, the Falcon business jet, which was about to fly to Paris, crashed at the Moscow's Vnukovo airport as a result of a collision with a snow plough, which happened to be on the runway. Four French citizens who were on board, including three crewmembers and a passenger - CEO of the Total oil company Christophe de Margerie - died.
A criminal inquiry was opened under Article 263 of the Russian Criminal Code ("Violation of the rules for safe movement and operation of an aircraft, resulting in two and more deaths by recklessness"). The inquiry is conducted by the Main Investigative Directorate of the Russian Investigative Committee.
The defendants in the criminal case are snow plough driver Martynenko, flight controller at the Vnukovo airport Kruglov, who supervised the work of flight control intern Krivsun, who was controlling the airport traffic at the moment of the air crash, leading engineer of the airport service Ledenev, who was in charge of the snow removal, and flight chief Dunayev.
On August 28 Russian Investigative Committee spokesman Vladimir Markin told Interfax that the air crash had been caused by the snowplow blundering onto the runway and incorrect instructions given by air traffic controllers.