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Jet crash at Moscow airport

Investigators drop charges against one of Falcon crash suspects — lawyer

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 in 2014

© Artyom Geodakan/TASS

Jet crash at Moscow airport

MOSCOW, January 14 /TASS/. The Russian Investigation Committee has dropped charges against intern Svetlana Krivsun who was a suspect in the Falcon plane crash case, Krivsun’s lawyer Murad Musayev told TASS on Thursday.

"We have just received an investigator’s order that the charges against Krivsun have been dropped because there is no element of crime in her actions. The investigators concluded that air traffic controller (Svetlana) Krivsun, who was an intern at the time of crash, acted in the right way and was pare from any crime," Musayev said.

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. The Russian authorities initiated criminal proceedings on charges of violation of air traffic safety regulations and aircraft operation rules.

Five people were put 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; and intern air traffic controller Svetlana Krivsun. 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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