Air traffic trainee arrested with three others over Moscow plane crash

The jet crashed in a ball of flames while trying to abort takeoff having had its landing gear clipped by a snowplough
The jet crashed in a ball of flames while trying to abort takeoff having had its landing gear clipped by a snowplough
HODA EMAM / REUTERS

A trainee air-traffic controller was among four more Russians taken into custody today in connection with the crash of a private jet that killed the head of the French oil company Total earlier this week.

Investigators named the intern as Svetlana Krivsun, adding that her supervisor and the heads of air-traffic control and the runway cleaning service at Vnukovo Airport had been arrested.

The general director of the airport, used by business and political VIPS, resigned but was not taken into custody.

Meanwhile Vladimir Martynenko, 60, the driver of the snow plough that clipped the jet carrying Cristophe de Margerie, starting a domino effect that led to Monday’s crash, had his arrest extended until December 21.

A Moscow court was told that he had a