MOSCOW, October 22 (RIA Novosti) – The plane crash at Moscow’s Vnukovo-3 Airport, which took lives of four people, including Total CEO Christophe de Margerie, will be investigated by the same person who probed into Polish President Lech Kaczynski's plane crash in Smolensk, Russia, in 2010, Russian newspaper Kommersant reported Wednesday.
"Due to the high status of both de Margerie and the airport which is used by senior officials, the investigation ... was assigned to a member of Russia's Investigative Committee, Mikhail Gurevich," the newspaper said.
On Tuesday, the Interstate Aviation Committee, an air disaster investigation authority in Russia and other ex-Soviet states, announced that it had set up a special commission to investigate the crash. The experts from the French authority responsible for safety probes into civil aviation incidents (BEA) arrived in Moscow to assist the investigation.
A business jet departing for Paris crashed late Monday night at Vnukovo-3 Airport after hitting a snowplow during takeoff. None of the four people on board – de Margerie and three crew members – survived.
Russia's Investigative Committee is considering two main possibilities as to the cause of the crash – a traffic control mistake and the actions of the snowplow driver. Investigators are also checking if the plane could have crashed due to bad weather conditions or a mistake by the pilot.
