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A court has recognized the evidence gathered by the Omsk Region Office of the Investigative Committee as sufficient to convict founder of OOO of OOO Group of Companies Zhilstroy Just Fit Life Viktor Polukarov, CEO Konstantin Semyonov, chief superintendent engineer Sergey Maslyonkin and crane operator Fyodor Yelkin. They were found guilty of construction safety breach under part 3 of Article 216, while Yelkin was also found guilty of damage to property under Article 168 of the RF Penal Code.

The court and investigators have found that on 26 October 2015, about 5 PM, a tower crane collapsed at a construction site of a trade and exhibition center with a hotel in Marshal Zhukov street in the town of Omsk and fell a Toyota RAV-4 and GAZel-Sobol vehicles parked nearby. . A 30-year-old man, his 33-year-old wife and their 4-month-old baby were killed on the spot in the Toyota RAV-4. In addition, their second 4-year-old child, a 53-year-old driver of the GAZel-Sobol and the 36-year-old crane driver were taken to hospital with injuries. The GAZel-Sobol driver died later at hospital. The crane driver has been operated on and now he is stable but in grave condition. The boy hospitalized with fractures is out of danger.

According to investigators the cause of the tragedy was negligent actions of the employees of the contractor construction company while ensuring requirements of technical regulations in mounting a tower crane, which at the moment of the fall was pouring concrete to the piles of the foundation. Namely, the blocking mechanisms of the crane’s undercarriage on the rail it was moving on had been set violating the technical requirements and safety rules causing the crane to leave its rail and fall on the road. The employees of the company had failed to carry out necessary daily preventive examinations and checks of the crane.

Polukarov and Maslyonkin were remanded in custody pending trial, but then were released on recognizance as well as Semyonov and Yelkin. 

All the accused except Yelkin, denied the charges, shifting the blame onto each other, however their arguments have been carefully checked and refuted by the evidence, particularly by the results of computer inquiries and industrial safety check of the crane, interviews of experts, conclusions of a Rostekhnadzor specialist commission, examinations of documents confiscated during the probe. Those results confirmed once more the cause-and-effect relation between the actions of the accused and the grave consequences that followed. If only they had stick to elementary safety rules, the family could have lived.

The court has sentenced Polukarov to 4 years, Semyonov and Maslyonkin to 3.5 years, Yelkin to 2 years in a penal settlement. Yelkin also got 320 hours of community work.