A former executive of Yak Service Airlines has been charged in connection with the plane crash that killed the entire Lokomotiv Yaroslavl hockey team last September. Vadim Timofeev is accused of violating the rules of air traffic safety and air transport operation, according to Investigative Committee's spokesman Vladimir Markin, who told RIA-Novosti. Investigators said Timofeev was in charge of flight operations at Yak Service, with control of the pilots' qualification being his direct responsibility. The crew was supposedly unqualified.
The Yak-42 aircraft carrying the KHL side Lokomotiv crashed just a few minutes after taking off from Yaroslavl airport on Sept. 7, 2011.
"By putting the crew in the air Timofeev broke the rules of air transport operations. At the moment of the disaster, that crew wasn't entitled to fly," Markin stressed. "Timofeev had allowed the captain to fly based on falsified documents, and the co-pilot hadn't finished his training on the Yak-42 plane and had no right to be in air."
We'll continue to update this StoryStream with news on the Lokomotiv plane crash.