The prosecutor asked Denis Yevdokimov, the commander of the Superjet 100 aircraft that burned down at Sheremetyevo four years ago, to be sentenced to six years in prison in a colony-settlement. The case is being considered in the Khimki City Court of the Moscow Region. He hit his tail: a passenger Boeing landed hard in Komi A passenger plane in the Komi Republic made a hard landing, hitting the ground with its tail. As a result… February 09 15:18

“I ask the court to find Evdokimov guilty under Part 3 of Art. 263 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (violation of traffic safety rules) and sentence him to six years in a colony-settlement, ”TASS quotes the state prosecutor.

Evdokimov may also be banned from driving for three years.

The prosecutor’s office stated that the cause of the disaster was non-compliance with the rules for operating the vessel. The aircraft was not balanced enough to land, and the pilot “did not sense an emergency” and did not set an emergency code. The Superjet 100 landed with “outrageous overload”.

“At the moment of the third touch, the racks were already partially destroyed. The first blow of the rack was withstood, the second blow on the strip was very strong, after which the racks were broken, ”the representative of the state prosecution noted.

On May 5, 2019, a plane flying from Moscow to Murmansk was forced to make an emergency landing at Sheremetyevo Airport. The SSJ-100 hit the runway three times before bursting into flames. 40 passengers and one flight attendant were killed. Two pilots, two flight attendants and 33 passengers managed to escape.

Defense version

Yevdokimov’s lawyers insist on his innocence, pointing to the bad faith of the investigation, which rejected petitions for several dozen expert examinations. According to the defense version, at an altitude of approximately 2,700 m, lightning struck the plane. After the impact, the Superjet 100 went into direct manual control, but due to the restart, some of the aircraft’s systems never recovered. The pilots decided to return to Sheremetyevo, and landed urgently – without running out of fuel in the air and with an excess of landing weight. The SSJ touched down twice on the runway and took off again. For the third time, the landing gear pulled out the wall of the fuel tank through the spar, the fuel leaked, which led to the fire of the vessel.Into three parts: how Boeing fell apart in Istanbul A hard landing of a passenger plane at Istanbul airport led to the death of three people, another 179 were injured … 06 February 09:31

Lawyers are sure that all passengers could have managed to evacuate if the air flow from the open door had not accelerated the spread of fire. The defense also asked to open a case against the rescuers who arrived at the scene of the emergency late. The application was rejected.

According to the pilot of the vessel, the chassis design did not meet the “airworthiness standards”. In an interview with Lenta.ru in 2020, Evdokimov said that he did everything possible to avoid the tragedy.

“I sincerely regret and apologize that I became a participant in these events. More precisely, I understood that the lives of passengers and crew members depended on the correctness of my actions, and I did everything possible, ”he said.

According to Evdokimov, test flights with landings at a mass exceeding the maximum landing weight were not carried out. Nevertheless, in the manufacturer’s documents there was a note about the possibility of landing with a mass up to the maximum takeoff.

“I will not back down, and no matter what it costs me, I will continue to seek to establish the true and reliable reasons that contributed to the tragic consequences, because the life and health of people who continue to fly the Superjet depend on it,” the pilot said.

The report of the International Aviation Committee indicated that the actions of the pilots after the second landing can be interpreted as a failed “attempt to perform a go-around”.

The materials of the case number two dozen volumes, more than a hundred examinations were carried out, including medical, genetic, flight, psychological-linguistic and others. According to the IAC, before the tragedy, lightning hit SSJ 16 times, but this did not lead to any serious consequences.