The Main Investigations Directorate of the Russia’s Investigative Committee has finished investigating a criminal case over Tu-134A plane crash, happened near Petrozavodsk in June 2011 and resulted in death of 47 people. The employees of the airport Petrozavodsk – Vladimir Shkarupa and Vladimir Pronin are charged with a crime under part 3 of article 263 of the RF Criminal Code (violation of the rules for traffic safety and operation of air transport system involving by negligence death of two or more people). In addition, the head of radio technical flights support and aviation telecommunications department of the Federal Air Transport Agency Eduard Voitovsky is charged with a crime under part 3 of article 293 of the RF Criminal Code (negligence, involving death of two or more people).
It has been revealed that the cause of the crash was systematic failures made by three crew members and ground services. Namely, the commander of the aircraft continued descending in no-visibility of ground reference points to a height lower than that of weather minimum at the airport and failed to make a timely decision to go for the second circle. The second pilot basically did nothing. The drunk navigator breached conditions, order and rules of landing. The case opened against the said crewmembers under part 3 of article 263 of the RF Penal Code was closed due to their death.
As for the actions of ground services, the investigators have found out, that Shkarupa and Pronin organized meteorological support of the flight with violations the rules for flight safety and operation of the aircraft. Eduard Voytovsky performed official functions on mandatory certification of the airport with violations of requirements of regulations which resulted in violations in the work of meteorological support service. As a result of his actions violations became possible in the operation of meteorological support during certification. A year after certification he had had to send a commission to check if meteorological support met necessary requirements, however, he had failed to do that and decided to put off the check. As a result of Voytovsky’s illegal actions and inaction the meteorological support of the flights of commercial aviation at the Petrozavodsk airfield was performed using devices banned for use, without full set of tools for monitoring visibility during take-off and landing.
The investigators have enough evidence, so the criminal case with the approved indictment has been sent to court to be tried on the merits.
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