Updated 01:24 p.m. Moscow Time
MOSCOW, October 22 (RIA Novosti) - A panel of investigators looking into Tuesday's plane accident in Moscow in which the chief executive of French oil giant Total was killed has begun the extraction of data from the plane’s black boxes, a senior air disaster investigator said Wednesday.
"The information extracted from cockpit voice recorder will be sent for transcription and voice identification. The data from flight data recorder will be deciphered and submitted to technical experts," Sergei Zaiko, deputy chairman of the Moscow-based Interstate Aviation Committee (MAK), said.
Zaiko added that the flight recorders installed in the jet were modern and well-protected, and as such “allowed [the investigators] to carry out these works expeditiously."
The expert explained that the MAK investigation is aimed not at identifying those responsible for the tragedy – the prerogative of the Investigative Committee - but to find the reasons behind the accident and to prevent similar incidents from happening in the future.
A Falcon 50 business jet departing for Paris crashed late Monday night at Moscow’s Vnukovo-3 Airport after hitting a snowplow during takeoff. None of the four people on board – Total CEO Christophe de Margerie and three crew members – survived in the crash.
