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Director of company owner of Amurskaya freighter charged

Investigation has exposed a number of serious violations of the navigation rules, which could have caused the wreck of the freighter and death of the crew

KHABAROVSK, November 7 (Itar-Tass) — Director General of the Nikolayevsk-on-Amur Seaport company, which owns the Amurskaya dry-cargo ship that went missing on October 28 in the area of the Shantar Islands has been charged. A representative of the Far Eastern transport investigation department of Russia’s Investigative Committee (SK) Natalya Salkina told Itar-Tass on Wednesday that the investigation has exposed a number of serious violations of the navigation rules, which could have caused the wreck of the freighter and death of the crew.

The criminal case was opened under Article 263, part 3 of the RF Criminal Code –“violation of the safety rules of navigation and operation of maritime transport, resulting in the death of two or more persons.”

According to the Investigative Committee, the company’s Director General Alexander Shiltsin was detained by operatives at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport and convoyed to the Khabarovsk Territory. Within the criminal case opened over the missing Amurskaya dry-cargo ship Shiltsin was summoned for questioning by investigators, but did not show up to testify, and flew to Moscow. Therefore it was decided to detain him.

During many-day search for the missing cargo ship with the use of aircraft and ships, an unidentified object that has the length, width and other parameters like the Amurskaya freighter was found at the bottom of the Sea of ·· Okhotsk at a depth of 25 metres. On Wednesday, a group of divers from the Rubin rescue vessel is to examine the object.

An AN-26 aircraft has flown to examine the sea areas from the air flew, the Russian Emergency Situations Ministry’s (EMERCOM) main department for the Khabarovsk Territory reported.

The fate of the ship’s nine crew members has remained unknown.

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