The Russian court issued a conditional sentence to the major of the air force participating in the war

The Garrison Military Court in Kaluga sentenced the deputy squadron commander of the 52nd Guards Aviation Regiment, Alexei Skvortsov, to a suspended prison term for violating the rules of flight training. He was found guilty of the disaster at the long-haul aviation airfield in March 2021. Then three members of his crew died. “Kommersant” writes about the court decision.

The disaster occurred during the practice of an emergency takeoff at the Shaykovka airfield in the Kaluga region. Three members of the crew of the Tu-22M3 Svortsov long-range bomber were catapulted from the aircraft standing on the ground. The parachutes did not have time to open, the officers died. The victims were the commander of the unit, the navigator-instructor and the navigator of the regiment, in the rank of colonel, lieutenant colonel and major, respectively.

As the court found, the cause was Skvortsov’s actions, which applied stress to the catapulting system. For this, he was sentenced to three years of probation. In the same case, technician Igor Aristov, who inspected the plane before the scheduled flight, received a conditional sentence of two and a half years.

As “Kommersant” writes, Skvortsov and Aristov appealed the court’s decision. They are sure that the cause of the disaster was a technical malfunction. The commander of the Tu-22 has the opportunity to forcibly evacuate the crew, but for this the seal must be broken from the catapult switch. Aristov claims that the switch was sealed before the flight. Skvortsov – that he noticed that the seal was broken, but did not attach importance to it.

The 52nd air regiment is participating in the war in Ukraine, its pilots were accused by the Ukrainian side of attacks on civilian objects, for example, on a residential building in Dnipro in January 2023 (Moscow denies intentional attacks on civilian targets). The Shaykovka airfield was attacked at least twice by drones, apparently belonging to Ukraine.

In October, Ukrainian journalist Roman Tsymbalyuk claimed, without citing sources, that Skvortsov was participating in combat sorties. The sentence of the military man has not entered into legal force, the appeal will be considered by the 2nd Western District Military Court in Moscow.