MOSCOW (MRC) -- Two top executives at Moscow’s Vnukovo airport have tendered their resignations and Russian investigators detained four more employees following a plane crash that killed the head of Total, reported Hydrocarbonprocessing.
Vnukovo general director Andrey Dyakov and his deputy Sergey Solntsev resigned following the Oct. 20 crash that killed Total CEO Christophe de Margerie, according to an e-mailed statement from the airport.
Russia’s Investigative Committee detained two air traffic controllers, a flight operations officer and the head airfield-service engineer in connection with the accident, in addition to the driver of a snowplow the plane hit, it said on its website.
De Margerie was one of Russia’s most outspoken supporters in the European business community, and condemned US and European Union sanctions on the country as "unfair and unproductive" hours before the crash, which also killed three crew members on board the private jet.
Total, France’s largest company by sales, appointed its refining chief Patrick Pouyanne as his replacement.
A Moscow court condoned the arrest of Vladimir Martynenko, the driver of a snowplow that collided with de Margerie’s plane on a runway at Vnukovo, RIA Novosti reported from the courtroom.
The Investigative Committee alleges the driver was drunk, a charge his lawyer, Alexander Karabanov, denies.
As MRC wrote before, Total in September said its joint venture with Russia’s Lukoil, to explore shale oil in western Siberia, had ground to a halt as a result of western sanctions.
Total S.A. is a French multinational oil and gas company and one of the six "Supermajor" oil companies in the world with business in Europe, the United States, the Middle East and Asia. The company's petrochemical products cover two main groups: base chemicals and the consumer polymers (polyethylene, polypropylene and polystyrene) that are derived from them.
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