MOSCOW, January 9 (RAPSI) – The Moscow Commercial Court has ruled to proceed with a lawsuit filed by French airline Unijet, which managed the airplane of Total CEO Cristophe de Margerie before the fatal crash in October 2014, against the Vnukovo airport, the court’s ruling reads on Tuesday.

The airline seeks to recover 458.3 million rubles (nearly $8 million). Hearings are set for January 29.

The second defendant in the case is the State ATM Corporation.

In August, lawyer Olga Dinze said that the Investigative Committee resumed investigation into a separate criminal case over the crash of de Margerie’s airplane in Vnukovo.

Earlier, the Moscow City Court upheld return of a criminal case against several defendants, airport flight manager Roman Dunayev, air traffic controllers Alexander Kruglov and Nadezhda Arkhipova, to prosecutors.

On July 7, snow plow driver Vladimir Martynenko and Vnukovo lead airfield service engineer Vladimir Ledenev, who had earlier pleaded guilty and signed a plea bargain, were sentenced to 4 and 3.5 years in penal colony and were immediately pardoned as part of the broad amnesty program on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the victory in World War II.

Martynenko and Ledenev were charged with violation of traffic safety rules resulted in the death of two or more persons. The widow of Total CEO Cristophe de Maergerie, relatives of the deceased flight crew members, Vnukovo airport and Unijet air carrier have been recognized as victims in the case.

On July 25, Patrick Vervel, the husband of a stewardess, who died in the crash, appealed these sentences.

Christophe de Margerie died in a plane crash at Vnukovo airport on October 21, 2014, when his plane’s wing hit a snow plow. Among the victims were three crew members, all French citizens.

On October 25, 2016, the Interstate Aviation Committee (IAC) published its final report on investigation into the death de Margerie. Authors of the report listed several factors, which, when combined, may have resulted in the plane crash. Among potential causes of the crash are: violation of regulations over control of alcohol use by drivers of special equipment, absence of equipment for listening to traffic controllers in snow plow machines, inefficient organization of work with subsystem of observation and control of airfield, no measures taken by the plane’s crew to prevent takeoff after receiving information about “machine that intersects a road”.