A court martial in northern Russia’s Arkhangelsk has given a two-year suspended jail sentence to an Air Force officer who supervised flight operations prior to the crash of a MiG-31 interceptor in March, military investigators said on Thursday.
The officer, Roman Storozhenko, was found guilty of accepting the base at Kotlas in Arkhangelsk Region as being fit to allow flight operations in March 2010, and authorizing missions for MiG-31s.
Areas of the base’s runways and taxiways had not been sufficiently cleared, however, and when one of the MiGs landed, it hit snow guards on the edge of the runway, tipped over and crashed, causing damage worth 86.6 million rubles ($3.09 million).
“In the course of the preliminary investigation and trial, Storozhenko has been found guilty. The Arkhangelsk military tribunal has sentenced him to two years suspended,” military investigators said.
