About midnight on Tuesday, the plane on which Christophe de Margerie was traveling, besides two pilots and a stewardess, crashed on the runway of the international airport Vnukovo-3.

 

 

The Russian National Investigative Committee is considering as main causes of the accident the presence on the runway of a snow sweeper, against which the plane crashed, and the decision by the air-traffic controllers of authorizing the private plane Falcon-50 to take off, without verifying the state of the runway.

 

 

Five investigators and the representative of Falcon plane manufacturer are members of the French delegation, which began the inquiry on Tuesday together with the Inter-Governmental Civil Aviation Committee.  We are here give all the necessary technical aid and information about the plane, said Air-Accident Investigation Bureau representative Francois Oshar.  He said they would stay in Russia from three to five days to collaborate with  the investigation, with the relevant International Committee, Russian television Channel One reported. (KH)