MOSCOW, May 22 (RAPSI) – The Moscow City Court’s Presidium has partially granted an appeal against rulings of lower courts dismissing a claim for compensation filed against Vnukovo airport by the husband of a stewardess, who died during the infamous crash of Total CEO Cristophe de Margerie’s airplane in 2014, RAPSI correspondent reports from the courtroom.

According to the Presidium, the ruling in this case is to be clarified with a special provision stating that the plaintiff has a right to file a civil lawsuit with the Solntsevsky District Court of Moscow.

Earlier, lawyer Kyamal Dzhavadov stated that his client resides in France and it would be hard for him to get to Paris, write down a letter of attorney and send it to Moscow.

In July 2017, 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. However, they 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.

The criminal case against several other defendants, airport flight manager Roman Dunayev, air traffic controllers Alexander Kruglov and Nadezhda Arkhipova, was returned to prosecutors.

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”.