Posted on 01/18/2008 4:20:29 PM PST by KeyLargo
Man, who killed air traffic controller, becomes deputy construction and architecture minister
18.01.2008 Source: Pravda.Ru URL:
By Anastasia Tomazhenkova: Vitaly Kaloyev, a Russian man who killed a Swiss air traffic controller he blamed for a plane crash that killed his wife and children was appointed to a high-level government post in his home province in southern Russia.
Vitaly Kaloyev, an architect, was named deputy construction and architecture minister of North Ossetia, one of Russia's 85 administrative regions.
Kaloyev was charged with killing a flight control officer of the Swiss company Skyguide. The court ruled that Kaloyev had committed a premeditated murder of the man, whom he considered guilty of the death of his family. Vitaly Kaloyev's wife and two children died in a plane crash over Lake Constance, which made world news headlines on 2 July 2002.
The plane crash occurred in the area controlled by the Swiss company Skyguide. The company's administration originally refused to claim responsibility for the horrible tragedy. The authorities of Germany and Switzerland had to present official condolences to the families of the plane crash victims instead, while Skyguide brought its apologies only two years after the accident. Investigators concluded that the air traffic in the area of the crash was not heavy that night, although it required the work of three flight control officers. However, there was only one officer at the control panel, Peter Nielsen of Denmark.
Vitaly Kaloyev, who lost his wife and children in the plane crash over Germany, arrived in Zurich, in an attempt to receive official apologies from Skyguide's Director, Alan Rossier, but received nothing for his pains. The grieving man decided to go to the town of Kloten (a suburb of Zurich), where the above-mentioned flight control officer was residing with his wife and three children. Kaloyev came to the Nielsens', and the two men talked to each other privately; the conversation was held in loud voices. When Kaloyev left, Peter Nielsen's wife found her husband dead with numerous stab wounds.
Kaloyev, 51, was convicted in Switzerland in October 2005 of killing Peter Nielsen and sentenced to five-and-a-quarter years in prison. He was released in November under an order by Switzerland's highest court.
Nielsen, a Dane, had been the only person on duty when a plane of Russia's Bashkirian Airlines and a DHL cargo jet collided on July 1, 2002, in airspace he had been responsible for over southern Germany. The crash killed 71 people, mostly schoolchildren on a holiday trip to Spain.
Kaloyev was working in Spain at the time, and his wife and two children were on their way to visit him.
He was freed in accordance with Swiss legislation that allows early release of convicted criminals for good behavior after they complete two-thirds of a sentence.
Kaloyev's ordeal has brought him widespread sympathy in Russia.
In September, four Skyguide employees were found guilty of negligent homicide in a separate case examining the events that led to the crash. Their punishments ranged from a one-year suspended prison sentence to fines.
AVIATION PING
“Kaloyev, 51, was convicted in Switzerland in October 2005 of killing Peter Nielsen and sentenced to five-and-a-quarter years in prison. He was released in November under an order by Switzerland’s highest court.”
If the Swiss courts have so little regard for justice, you can hardly be surprised that the Russians wouldn’t give a damn about his crime.
It just goes to prove what I’ve been saying for some time... There is no justice but vigilante justice.
“He was freed in accordance with Swiss legislation that allows early release of convicted criminals for good behavior after they complete two-thirds of a sentence.”
I think the Swiss need a course in remedial arithmetic. Two years and one month is not 2/3 of 5 and a quarter years.
Credit for time served while awaiting trial?
And this is the country that once pioneered precision time pieces?
This, from a country that opposes the Death Penalty.
Why be surprised?
So when a man who wants an apology for the death of his family asks for one give it.
No man is sane after that for a good while.
If we had more men like Vitaly Kaloyev, and the men who understand him, in America we’d have a better country.
AMEN!
A bit of a bizarre comment, under the circumstances. I saw something about this on the Discovery Channel (I think) a couple years ago. The incident was an honest and tragic mistake. One man was doing the job of three controllers -- when he realized what was about to happen, his attempts to remedy the situation were countermanded by opposite instructions from the planes' onboard computers which confused the pilots.
The only thing I can imagine that would be worse than losing my family would be depriving another family of a father and husband as well.
Nielsen, the controller, was indeed overworked. The cause of the accident, though, was that he gave one of the aircraft instructions to descend when its onboard TCAS (traffic collision avoidance system) was screaming at the pilot, correctly, “climb, climb.” The pilot of the Bakshirian Tu-154 followed the controller’s instructions to descend, while the DHL 757 followed its own TCAS instructions to descend. The net result was that the two planes descended into each other. If the Bakshirian aircraft had listened to its onboard systems instead of Nielsen, the accident would not have happened.
There’s a clip from a National Geographic UK documentary on the accident here. Warning: The re-creation is pretty brutal.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-U0AxIwJpYs&feature=related
}:-)4
Yes, a mistake. BUT — the Russian airplane did what the controller said to do, rather than what the TCAS directed. A big no-no. The TCAS interrogates several times more often than the controller’s radar, and is more accurate. If the Russian aircraft had followed the TCAS resolution advisory, the controller’s mistake wouldn’t have resulted in a collision.
Ping.
You couldn't be more wrong. The controller was overworked in an understaffed situation. He didn't deserve to be murdered for what happened.
My impression from the article is that the company responsible, Skyguide, is private.
The only thing I can imagine that would be worse than losing my family would be depriving another family of a father and husband as well.
Yes, a vindication of two wrongs not making right.
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