Oksana Yevdokimova: "The plane in the proceeding of my husband - the commander of the aircraft - is not featured"

Oksana Evdokimova

Let me remind you that to date, aviation accidents and incidents are being investigated by the Interstate Aviation Committee (IAC) and the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation (ICR). Today about the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation and the Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation.

In law enforcement, the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation (ICRF), in accordance with the law, should conduct its independent investigation in order to determine the guilt of those involved in the disaster. The prosecutor's office of the Russian Federation checks the correctness and legality of the investigation conducted by the Investigative Committee and, if there are no violations, transfers the case to court. And only the court determines the guilty sentencing.

Currently, the investigation into the disaster has been completed and the case has been transferred to the court.

After any plane crash, the aviation authorities, as a rule, suspend the operation of this type of aircraft until the reasons for the tragedy are finally clarified. This applies to both military and civil aviation. This does not happen only in exceptional cases, when there is a clear pilot error. The Ministry of Transport did not find the reasons for the SSJ-100 to stop, which indirectly indicates that the crew was a priori declared guilty of the disaster.

It was precisely this attitude that the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation received. From the moment of the first interrogation, it became clear that the investigation intends to work out only one version - the pilot’s mistake. The remaining versions of the disaster are contrary to the interests of the controlling, certification and, of course, the manufacturer.

The aviation incident has become clearly political in nature. And this is understandable, because we are so proud of our aircraft industry, and we do not and cannot have constructive miscalculations, but we need to sell airplanes. Moreover, as I understand it, already somewhere in the distant future the possibility of signing a contract with the UN was considered. Therefore, it was simply necessary to save the reputation of the aircraft, and the pilot to promptly bring charges and bring the case to court.

The first thing the ICRF began with was the non-recognition of the aircraft as material evidence. That is, the "murder weapon" is not in the case. The plane does not appear in a criminal case. In my opinion, on this topic, the investigation of ICRF can be closed, in principle. They did not investigate the plane crash, they collected indictment against the commander, however, even all their volumes were signed not “on the investigation of the plane crash”, but “on the charge of D. Yevdokimov” - the difference is obvious. And talking about an independent investigation is not necessary at all, as previously it has repeatedly drawn attention to the fact that the IAC, contrary to ICAO requirements, has concluded a cooperation agreement with the ICR. It is this tandem that indicates that each side is interested in accusing the commander.

However, there is a technical examination, which suggests that the plane was in good condition before departure. How it was carried out is a question, there is no material evidence, but there is an examination. What happened to the plane after a lightning strike (more than 10 electrical impulses entered the plane, while there are usually 2-3 of them), how did the on-board computers react to control, what failures and in what sequence progressed during the descent and landing, etc. - no one began to find out. There are a lot of technical issues on the plane. For example, the question is about the blocks of aircraft concentrators, which are responsible for all the electronics of the aircraft. It is known that on the eve of departure they were installed on an airplane. One of them is new, and the second after repair. Previously, it was operated in Mexico, failed and was sent to Russia for repair. Where is the guarantee that it was he who did not cause the tragedy? No one has conducted research on the aircraft.

The aviation experts invited by the investigation as consultants during the investigation tried to convey to the investigation the need for thorough and impartial conduct of all examinations in order to establish the true causes of the incident. But as soon as the investigation understood that these people could really unravel the “tangle of problems” by their actions, they were removed from the investigation and lost all interest in them.

The technical expert, who was attracted by the investigation, prepared 60 questions to determine the true causes of the disaster, which must be answered to identify the causes. The questions concerned the actions of pilots, the technical condition of the aircraft, weather conditions during the flight, the adequacy of the actions of the airport services, and the compliance of their regulations with international requirements. After the investigator agreed with the senior management, only 6 questions remained for examination, and all of them were aimed at accusing the commander.

Throughout the investigation, the husband did not intentionally change the procedural status, thereby excluding the possibility of him and his defense participating in investigative actions to conduct examinations, investigative experiments, etc.

Another interesting detail - the investigation recognized the second pilot as a victim. For professionals, this is nonsense. The crew on the plane always works together, even if one pilots, the other keeps in touch, reads check lists, etc., etc., it is no accident that the crew has a two-member crew, each performs its work in accordance with the regulatory documents of the airline. I see the second pilot withdrawing from the case only to simplify the commander’s accusation scheme, otherwise they would have to share responsibility, collect additional evidence, and this is the time. And the investigators did not have time.

Flight technical expertise, which was solely prepared by Yu.M. Fatten, conducted in violation. It should be noted that, despite his merits, and he is a member of the Presidential Commission for the Development of General Aviation and an Honored Pilot of the Russian Federation, he never piloted an aircraft with remote control by analogy with Airbas and Boeing, the analogue of which is SS J - 100, therefore does not know its features, completed its flight activities before the start of operation of the SS J -100. His expertise is paragraphs and phrases taken from the context of the IAC preliminary report, that is, almost plagiarism. Expertise conclusion - a rough landing of the aircraft led to the tragedy, while it does not refer to airworthiness standards and schedules from the preliminary report. I also want to add that this is not his first examination, on which the crew’s charge is based.

10/02/2019, the husband was unfoundedly charged under Part 3 of Art. 263 "Violation of traffic safety rules and the operation of air transport, which, through negligence, caused serious harm to human health, the death of two or more persons." It is groundless, because at the time of the indictment there were no results of all examinations, decipherments of the “black box”, the final report of the IAC.

The head of the Main Department of Criminalistics of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation, Lieutenant General Z. Lojis said that the passengers died from smoke and fire, and not from a blow. He specified that hazardous substances entered the air not only when fuel was burned, but also in the skin of a plastic cabin. Here I want to draw attention to the fact that the passengers after the rough landing were all alive, death came for other reasons. But this did not affect the course of the investigation, although it is here that the causal relationship between the actions of the aircraft commander and the death of passengers ends.

The investigation was carried out in 5 months, as soon as possible, which is not typical for the investigation of such cases. In judicial practice, there have never been such fleeting cases of plane crashes. The preliminary investigation has never been closed before the outcome of the IAC investigation.

Her husband’s lawyers filed more than 30 different motions, including an appeal to the Head of the Investigative Committee with a request to resume the investigation, which was refused. Almost all applications were rejected.

I also want to note that all the accusations made by her husband were made on the basis of interrogations of workers of the aircraft manufacturer, although it is forbidden by law to involve interested persons in the investigation.

Together with the transfer of the criminal case, the lawyers sent a voluminous complaint addressed to the Prosecutor General, who, at the time of the preliminary investigation, held the position of Deputy Head of the Investigative Committee.

Special attention should be paid here. I suppose that it was known in advance that the Deputy Head of the Investigative Committee would take the position of the Prosecutor General in the future and be able to send the case to the court without any problems and delays. That is, the one who conducted the preliminary investigation will reveal violations in his own right? Absurd. Let me remind you again - the criminal case is political, not aviation.

The laws on the Prosecutor's Office and the Investigative Committee, as well as the Code of Criminal Procedure gave the Prosecutor's Office not only the opportunity, but also the obligation to control the investigation. And if there are violations in the investigation or not sufficiently complete investigation, she is obliged to return for further investigation to work out all the versions and substantiate the exhaustive evidence of the prosecution.

But the Prosecutor General’s Office of the Russian Federation considered the case of a plane crash so simple that to get acquainted with the case (about 50 volumes), it took 4 days for the indictment to be approved, although under the legislation of the Russian Federation it has the right to study complex cases for up to 30 days.

It seems that the Prosecutor’s Office of the Russian Federation, in this case, ensured the activities of the prosecuting authorities and the prosecution. It’s a little symbolic that, when assuming the post of Prosecutor General, the candidate at first forgot to put his hand on the Constitution: “I swear in the exercise of the powers of the Prosecutor General of Russia to observe the Constitution and laws of Russia, to protect the rights and freedoms of man and citizen, to protect the interests of society and the state. " All this is very similar to the attitude of the Investigative Committee and the Prosecutor General's Office to the investigation of the plane crash in Sheremetyevo.

Personally, I have so many questions for ICRF that all their transfers will take more than one A4 sheet. There are a lot of gaps in the criminal case (actions of dispatchers, firefighters, rescuers), but the main thing is that there is not a word about the airworthiness standards for lightning protection and chassis. Nothing is investigated except the actions of the commander - neither the machine, nor the conditions, nor the environment. If we consider all the versions, it will become obvious that there is no causal relationship between the actions of the pilot and the loss of life.

And in conclusion, I want to remind the TFR that, in accordance with Art. 17, 38 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, the investigator is an official authorized, within the competence of the Code of Criminal Procedure, to carry out a preliminary investigation in a criminal case, at the same time independently decide on the performance of investigative and other procedural actions, while assessing evidence based on his inner conviction based on the totality of evidence available in a criminal case, guided by law and conscience. LAW AND CONSCIENCE.

P.S.

May 5 is a mournful day for our family. Life was divided into "before" and "after". A year ago, a tragedy took place in Sheremetyevo, where 40 passengers and 1 crew member died.

I want to express my deepest condolences to those who did not wait on May 5, 2019 for their relatives and friends from this unfortunate flight. I know what it is, because almost 20 years ago, too, I lost a loved one in a plane crash, it is unbearably painful and it is very difficult to put up with it. But, unfortunately, one has to learn to live with it anew, to live without them - the most dear, beloved and necessary. Believe me, this pain will be with us for the rest of our lives.