Last night’s tragic accident at Vnukovo international airport resulted in the deaths of four people, including Total President Christophe de Margerie.
Cases of airplane crashes involving airport vehicles have occurred a number of times during the past 10 years. Here are just a few examples:
2014
On the night of October 21, a Dassault Falcon 50 business jet collided with a snowplow on the runway at Moscow’s Vnukovo International Airport. Christophe de Margerie, the CEO of French energy company Total, and three crew members perished in the crash. The driver of the snowplow was hospitalized.
On September 1, a truck crashed into an Aurora Airlines Airbus A-319 while unloading luggage at Sokol Airport in Magadan in the Russian Far East. No injuries were reported.
On July 11, an Airbus A320 collided with a towing vehicle at Moscow’s Domodedovo Airport; the airport’s synthetic fabric covering was damaged. No casualties were reported.
2013
On May 20, a ladder vehicle crashed into a plane making a landing at Norilsk’s Alykel Airport, knocking out a window in the third passenger compartment. The Boeing 737-800, owned by Taimyr Air Company, had arrived from St. Petersburg with 62 passengers and seven crew members on board. No one was hurt.
2011
On October 19, a Tatarstan Airlines Yak-42 and a Gaz van belonging to a Russian energy company collided at Pulkovo Airport in St. Petersburg. The incident occurred due to severe weather conditions, including snow and rain. None of the airplane’s passengers were injured, and Tatarstan Airlines quickly organized a new flight for them on another plane.
2007
On December 15, a Tu-134 flying from Moscow’s Vnukovo to Cheboksary, Chuvashia, made contact with the vehicle which had towed the plane to its point of departure. The airplane, which belonged to Orenair, had 19 passengers on board. The collision occurred when the vehicle broke down while towing the plane. There were no injuries.
On July 9 at Moscow’s Domodedovo Airport, a lift truck used for in-flight catering collided with a parked S7 Airlines Tu-154M. The accident resulted in the damaging of the right wingtip of the plane. No one was hurt.
On May 5 at Moscow’s Vnukovo, an Il-86 carrying 344 passengers from Moscow to Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt collided with a crane vehicle while being towed to its takeoff point. The wingtip of the plane was damaged but no one was injured.
2004
On the night of March 31, an Aeroflot Il-96 flight at Khabarovsk’s Novy Airport collided with a towing vehicle when the rod used to tow the vehicle broke. The collision damaged the nose of the aircraft, resulting in the delay of the Moscow-bound flight for more than a day. Nobody was injured in the incident.
