Russia Opens Criminal Probe Into Plane Crash Death Of Total CEO
Russia’s chief investigative panel has opened a criminal probe into the Oct. 20 accident at Moscow’s Vnukovo International Airport that killed Christophe de Margerie, the CEO of the French multinational oil company Total, saying the field’s management was negligent and that the snowplow driver who apparently caused the crash was drunk.
The Investigative Committee, Russia’s chief investigative agency, said the driver of the plow was in custody and that it was determining whether he or air traffic controllers were responsible for the crash. An official with the committee, Tatyana Morozova, said, “At the current time, it has been established that the driver of the snowplow was in a state of alcoholic intoxication.”
The Investigative Committee’s spokesman, Vladimir Markin, also seemed to lay the blame on supervisory personnel at Vnukovo. “It’s already clear that the cause of the incident wasn’t a tragic set of circumstances … but the criminal connivance of officials who were unable to ensure coherent actions of airport staff,” he said in a statement.
Vnukovo is the airport used by Russian government officials and visiting foreign leaders.
De Margerie had been in Moscow for an annual meeting with Russian government ministers on foreign investment in Russia.
Source: oilpricecom-Russia Opens Criminal Probe Into Plane Crash Death Of Total CEO
