Indictment confirmed in case of death of 44 people

The Russian Prosecutor General's Office approved the indictment in a high-profile criminal case regarding the crash of the Yak-42 passenger airliner in Yaroslavl in 2011, which killed 44 people, including the main staff and coaches of the local hockey club Lokomotiv. In the near future, materials will be sent to the Yaroslavl District Court regarding the former deputy director for flight operations of the Yak Service airline, Vadim Timofeev, who, according to the investigation, allowed a crew that did not have the necessary qualifications to fly using falsified documents. The investigation believes that it was the mistakes of the pilots, who themselves died in the crash, that became the cause of the tragedy.

Photo: Vyacheslav Yurasov, Kommersant / buy photo

The indictment in the case of the disaster was approved by Deputy Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation Viktor Grin. The only defendant in this case was the former deputy general director for organizing flight operations of the Yak Service airline, Vadim Timofeev. He is accused of violating traffic safety rules and operating air transport, resulting in the death of two or more persons through negligence (Part 3 of Article 263 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation).

Who was blamed for the crew's poor readiness?

As the Prosecutor General's Office reported , “Timofeev knew that the commander of the Yak-42 aircraft and the co-pilot had not undergone professional education and training according to the program developed by the operator, and also did not take part in training to prevent stalling, recovering the aircraft from stall mode and complex spatial provisions." The supervisory authority notes that commander Andrei Solomentsev did not undergo a qualification test for more than a year, and co-pilot Igor Zhevelov was not trained at all to fly the Yak-42 aircraft. as a result, they should not have been allowed to fly.

Let us recall that earlier representatives of the ICR emphasized that it was Vadim Timofeev, by the nature of his activity, who was responsible for organizing flight work, maintaining and improving the qualifications of pilots, their training, as well as testing the pilots’ qualifications. However, the deputy director did not arrange for the pilots to undergo a ground training and education program. According to the investigation, Vadim Timofeev was “reliably aware” of the lack of training and lack of training of the crew, who carried out only the third flight in this composition.

The crew of the crashed Yak-42 trained only on paper

“Instead, on July 19, 2011, he issued order No. 17 on the formation of the crew of the Yak-42 D No. RA-42434 aircraft consisting of the aircraft commander, co-pilot and flight mechanic, as a result of which the said crew was allowed by Timofeev to fly the Yak aircraft -42 (previously he flew in a different car . - Kommersant ),” stated the Prosecutor General’s Office. It was this circumstance that led, according to the final version of the investigation, to the fact that when taking off from the Tunoshna airfield, the plane with the hockey team on board rolled off the runway, still took off from the ground, but crashed into the antenna and container of the localizer system after which he fell to the ground. Only one crew member (additional) managed to survive then - flight engineer Alexander Sizov, who received serious injuries. The remaining 44 people on board died.

The Prosecutor General's Office notes that as a result, in addition to the loss of life, material damage was caused. In particular, the losses of the owner of the crashed airliner, FSUE State Scientific and Production Center named after. M.V. Khrunichev" amounted to more than 17 million rubles. And the damage to HC Lokomotiv is estimated at more than 3 million rubles. Apparently, civil claims will be considered during the trial of Vadim Timofeev. As explained in the Prosecutor General's Office, in the near future, after the delivery of copies of the indictment to the accused, his lawyers and other interested parties, the case materials will be sent for consideration on the merits to the Yaroslavl District Court of the Yaroslavl Region.

Meanwhile, the Investigative Committee noted that the cases against the Yak-42 pilots were discontinued due to their death. Nevertheless, the investigative authorities intend to continue their work to identify the facts of allowing insufficiently trained pilots to fly. Moreover, complaints about the pilots’ qualifications also arose during the investigation into the Boeing 737 crash in Kazan last year.

Vladimir Barinov

How the Russian star team crashed in Yaroslavl

On September 7, 2011, in Yaroslavl, after the opening of a political forum, in which Russian President Dmitry Medvedev was to take part today, a Yak-42D crashed, carrying one of the best hockey teams in Russia, Lokomotiv. Of the 45 people, only the flight engineer survived. The airliner took off from the ground at the very end of the runway and soon crashed into a bend in the Volga, knocking down the localizer mast. Read more

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