The Khimki City Court has handed Denis Evdokimov, the captain of the SSJ-100 aircraft that caught fire at Sheremetyevo, a six-year sentence in a colonial settlement, according to the courtroom report from TASS.
The decision states that Evdokimov was found guilty under Part 3 of Article 263 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation for violations of traffic safety rules, with sentencing to six years in a colonial settlement, as noted by the judge.
The court also awarded 1.5 million rubles to each of two victims and banned Evdokimov from piloting a plane for three years, the agency reports. TASS notes that Evdokimov was not detained at the court and is expected to report to the colony once the ruling takes legal effect.
Yevdokimov’s spokesperson, Natalya Mitusova, indicated that the pilot’s lawyers plan to appeal, calling the ruling overly harsh. She added that the client will receive the order to appear in the colony only after the decision becomes final.
On May 24, the state prosecutor’s office requested six years in a colonial settlement for Evdokimov, arguing that the disaster stemmed from non-compliance with operating rules. The prosecutor claimed the Superjet 100 was not stable enough to land, the pilot did not recognize an emergency, and an emergency code was not set. The plane landed with excessive landing weight, leading to the disaster, according to prosecutors.
During the third touch, the shelves reportedly began to fail; a prosecutor’s representative described the first impact on the rack, followed by a very strong second blow to the strip, after which the racks broke, the official stated.
The Sheremetyevo incident occurred on May 5, 2019. After a hard landing and a post-landing fire on the Sukhoi Superjet-100, 40 passengers and a flight attendant lost their lives. The prosecution argued that crew negligence and a failure to dump excess fuel contributed to the crash, while Evdokimov’s defense contended that the plane was struck by lightning at about 2.7 km altitude and that some systems malfunctioned. They argued it was unsafe to burn fuel in the air, so the PIC chose to land with excessive landing weight.
According to Evdokimov’s plan, the landing gear would be cut, but the wall of the fuel tank was pierced by the impact, causing a fuel leak and subsequent fire.
In 2020, the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation asserted that Evdokimov grounded the aircraft improperly, violating aircraft-use rules and leading to its destruction and fire. The committee’s testimony, as presented by Svetlana Petrenko, reportedly disputed Evdokimov’s suggestion that the aircraft malfunctioned, with the black box data indicating the aircraft responded appropriately to the pilot’s actions.
In 2020, Evdokimov commented on the matter in an interview with Lentoy.ru, noting that the chassis design had not met airworthiness standards. He expressed remorse for the events and emphasized that passenger and crew lives depended on the correctness of actions taken at the moment, stating that he did what he could.
He also claimed that test flights with landing at a weight exceeding the maximum landing weight had not been conducted, although manufacturer documentation allowed landing with weight up to the maximum takeoff weight. He added that he would not back down, arguing that the safety of those who continue to fly Superjet relies on uncovering real, credible contributing factors to the tragedy.
In 2020, Vadim Lukashevich, a former Sukhoi Design Bureau designer, suggested that pilots could bear responsibility for the crash. He told the National News Service that the first error was attempting to land into a storm front where lightning struck the aircraft. Lukashevich also described the Superjet 100 as a normal and safe aircraft, noting 13 lightning incidents. He commented on theories pointing to design flaws in the airframe lining, while also stating that earlier remarks suggested the crew performed well and that operations on the Superjet should have been suspended in the wake of the tragedy.
December 2020 saw the newspaper Kommersant report that relatives of those who died filed a Paris court lawsuit against seven foreign manufacturers of the aircraft’s instruments and systems, as well as the operator Aeroflot. The plaintiffs argued that the tragedy resulted from the aircraft not meeting airworthiness standards for lightning protection. Defendants included Leach International Europe, Liebherr-Aerospace Toulouse SAS, Safran Landing Systems, Thales Avionics, PowerJet, L’Equipement et la Construction Electrique (ECE), and Curtiss-Wright of the United States. The requested damages were about €25 million. Media coverage on the case’s progress paused in 2022 and has not been prominently reported since.