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Russia completes investigation into 2014 Falcon crash at Moscow airport

In mid-January, the Russian Investigation Committee dropped charges against intern air traffic controller Svetlana Krivsun who was a suspect in the Falcon plane crash case

Alexander Kruglov Mikhail Pochuev/TASS

Alexander Kruglov

© Mikhail Pochuev/TASS

MOSCOW, January 18. /TASS/. Russia’s Investigative Committee has completed investigation into the Falcon plane crash at Moscow’s Vnukovo airport in October 2014 and has started bringing final charges against the defendants in the case, lawyer Nikolay Semyonov told TASS on Monday.

Jet crash at Moscow airport

The lawyer said the investigator has brought final charges against his client, the airport’s air traffic controller Alexander Kruglov and questioning is currently ongoing.

Alexander Karabanov, the lawyer of Vladimir Martynenko, the snowplow driver involved in the fatal plane crash, told TASS final charges were expected to be brought against his client on January 21.

In mid-January, the Russian Investigation Committee dropped charges against intern air traffic controller Svetlana Krivsun who was a suspect in the Falcon plane crash case. The investigators found that she acted in the right way and was not involved in the crime.

On the night from October 20 to October 21, 2014 a Falcon business jet of the French oil corporation Total collided with a snowplow during takeoff from Moscow’s Vnukovo airport; caught fire and crashed on the runway, killing the corporation’s CEO Christophe de Margerie and the three-strong crew.

Four people are now under house arrest in connection with the Falcon crash. They include airfield service engineer Vladimir Ledenev; the snowplow’s driver Vladimir Martynenko; air traffic controller Alexander Kruglov; Roman Dunayev, the flight director of the Vnukovo air traffic control centre. All of them have been charged with violation of air traffic safety regulations and aircraft operation rules that incurred the death of two or more people by negligence.

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