Both Pilots Of The Plane In The Lokomotiv Yaroslavl Crash Should Not Have Been Allowed To Fly

Tomorrow is the one-year anniversary of the plane crash that killed 36 members of the Russian hockey club Lokomotiv Yaroslavl, including former NHLers Ruslan Salei, Kārlis Skrastiņš, and Pavol Demitra. Today Russian officials announced that they were charging Vadim Timofeyev, the deputy head of the Yak-Service airline, with breaching air safety rules after an investigation revealed that neither of the two pilots of that plane should have been flying. A previous investigation found that the plane's brakes had been accidentally applied during take off.

According to Vladimir Markin, a spokesman for the committee that conducted the investigation, the captain had "falsified documents," and the co-pilot had never been trained to fly that particular type of aircraft. One pilot also had sedatives in his system and the other had a motor-skill debilitating disease.

But there is some good news for Lokomotiv. After spending last season in the VHL, Russia's second-tier league, while rebuilding its roster, the club beat Sibir Novosibirsk 5-2 today in its return to the KHL.

Charges brought in Lokomotiv plane crash case [RT]