The Kiev Interregional Economic Court of Appeal dismissed an appeal on Monday by Russia’s Siberia Airlines (S7) against an earlier court ruling that the Ukrainian military had no involvement in a Russian Tu-154 crash in 2001.
The Tu-154 passenger jet went down in Ukraine on October 4, 2001, en route from Tel Aviv, killing 66 passengers and 12 crew members. The Gelendzhik radar complex on Russia's Black Sea coast detected an airborne object some 50 kilometers from the plane 30 seconds before the aircraft exploded.
The Moscow-based Interstate Aviation Committee, a civil aviation authority within the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), ruled that the crash was caused by an accidental Ukrainian S-200 missile strike during military training exercises.
However, the Kiev Interregional Economic Court of Appeal, in early September 2011, refused to accept a claim by the Russian airline to recover damages from the Ukraine Ministry of Defense and the State Treasury of Ukraine for the accident.
In 2004, Russia’s Siberia Airlines (S7) filed a lawsuit at a Kiev court seeking more than $15.3 million in compensation for the loss of a Tu-154 passenger jet.
