France has launched manslaughter charges in connection with the death of the country’s oil giant Total’s head Christophe de Margerie in an air crash at Vnukovo-3 Airport in Moscow, ria.ru reports.
The Falcon 50 jet crashed late Monday night at Vnukovo-3 Airport in Moscow after the aircraft hit a snow removal vehicle on takeoff and then was engulfed in flames. The aircraft was flying from Moscow to Paris with de Margerie as the only passenger on board besides three crew members, also French citizens. All four people were killed.
The driver of the snow removal machine that the French Falcon-50 jet collided with was drunk, spokesman of the Russian Investigative Committee Vladimir Markin told TASS. Detectives are probing an error of flight controllers and actions of the snow removal machine driver as main causes of the crash. Technical documents for the jet are being confiscated, fuel samples taken, Mr Markin added.
According to Moscow inter-regional transport investigation department, the driver survived and is being questioned.
A criminal case over violation of air traffic safety rules and aircraft steering rules that entailed death of two and more people through negligence has been opened. Vnukovo-3 staff may be suspended from work for the period of the investigation, rbc.ru reports.
Russia’s Vladimir Putin and France’s Francois Hollande have expressed their condolences over the Total CEO’s death.
De Margerie, 63, joined Total in 1974. He became chief executive of Total on February 14, 2007. Since May 2010, he served as chairman of the company.
Total is an important player in the Russian energy market and Mr de Margerie was a staunch defender of maintaining ties, despite Western sanctions against Moscow over its actions in Ukraine, bbc.co.uk reports.
Total is one of the biggest foreign investors in Russia and is planning to double its output from the country by 2020. It is working on the Yamal project, a $27bn joint venture to extract natural gas in northwest Siberia.
Total’s share price on the Euronext stock exchange are reported to have dropped 2 percent Tuesday.
