Christophe de margerie conspiracy 365
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Early reports implicate the snowplow driver — possibly drunk, though his lawyer denied it — or a ground control mistake. "Most people, when they speak of Total do not know what it is, but know it is not good," he said in 2009.
Total said in September that work on constructing a new natural gas liquefaction plant in northwestern Siberia was continuing despite Western sanctions buffeting Russia over its role in the conflict in Ukraine.
The group also announced in May it had signed a deal with Russia's second biggest oil company Lukoil to explore and develop shale oil deposits in western Siberia.
In 2016, two employees pleaded guilty; others, including ATC personnel, were sentenced in 2020. He publicly argued that Europe could not afford to abandon Russian gas and criticized economic sanctions as counter-productive.
The Yamal LNG Project
Total was a key investor in Russia’s $27 billion Yamal LNG project, designed to boost Arctic gas exports.
Ground-vehicle communication failures, human-error chains, and procedural deviations allowed the vehicle to remain unnoticed on the runway.
But De Margerie told the Financial Times last month that the project had been halted due to the EU and US sanctions.
burs/hmn/rmb
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Overview of the Incident
On October 20, 2014, a Dassault Falcon 50EX (F-GLSA) operated by Unijet crashed during take-off from Moscow Vnukovo Airport (UUWW), killing Christophe de Margerie, Chairman and CEO of Total S.A., and the three crew members on board.
The aircraft collided with a snow-removal vehicle that had entered Runway 06 without clearance in low-visibility, night conditions.
The jet’s right wing and landing gear struck the vehicle at roughly 133 KCAS (Calibrated Airspeed), causing a loss of control. The surface-movement system was improperly configured, and controllers were not fully trained to interpret alerts, leaving a critical safety layer inactive when the collision occurred.
Legal Outcomes
Russian courts later found multiple individuals responsible.
Russia has a legion of state agencies charged with enforcing meticulous and contradictory public safety regulations. The weather included dense fog and limited runway visibility, which required strict adherence to Low Visibility Procedures (LVP).
Sequence of Events
During runway operations, a snowplow entered the active runway without air-traffic clearance.
The IAC’s data, international safety analyses, and judicial findings all attribute the crash to operational errors and organizational failures, not geopolitical interference.
Conclusion
The 2014 Vnukovo accident underscores how human error, poor coordination, and weak safety culture can breach every layer of defense in aviation.
For Moscow, his pragmatic stance symbolized the value of long-term energy partnerships beyond political disputes.
Conspiracy Theories vs. A half-hearted approach to basic public safety is Russia's domestic problem, but it just got harder to ignore now that it affected a prominent foreigner so tragically.Indignant noises are now expected — and are already forthcoming — from the Kremlin, and officials will likely be fired.
In 2011, 122 died in the Volga River in the sinking of the cruise ship Bulgaria, which, a court later ruled, should not have been certified to operate. Russia has a legion of state agencies charged with enforcing meticulous and contradictory public safety regulations. That crash was mostly blamed on mistakes made by the crew, though the Polish side insisted that errors by Russian ground control also contributed to the tragedy.
But while the 2010 catastrophe was largely seen as extraordinary, the Vnukovo crash looks like the latest incident in a clear trend highlighting Russia's public service and infrastructure problems.
Russia has seen more than its fair share of high-profile incidents caused by public safety services simply not doing their job well enough.
In another Moscow airport, Sheremetyevo, a man died in August from apparent cardiac arrest after an emergency rescue team took more than an hour to arrive.
In July, 24 people died in a metro train crash in Moscow, now tentatively blamed on a technical malfunction. It also illustrates how a single tragedy can echo through global energy politics, exposing the complex overlap between corporate interests, international sanctions, and aviation safety.
The legacy of Christophe de Margerie endures both in the lessons drawn from the crash and in the enduring symbol of the Yamal LNG “Christophe de Margerie” vessel—a reminder that leadership decisions in global energy often extend far beyond the boardroom.
References and Further Reading
The legacy of Christophe de Margerie endures both in the lessons drawn from the crash and in the enduring symbol of the Yamal LNG “Christophe de Margerie” vessel—a reminder that leadership decisions in global energy often extend far beyond the boardroom.
Total CEO's Death No Conspiracy, But No Accident
Christophe de Margerie, CEO of French oil giant Total, died on Monday night outside Moscow along with three others when his business jet hit a snowplow on a landing strip at Vnukovo Airport.
But until the attitude to state service, including public safety, is changed, Russian nightclubs, streets and landing strips will remain far more dangerous than they are supposed to be.
And let's not forget that one of Vnukovo's terminals — though not the one where the crash took place — serves President Vladimir Putin's own flights.
Total CEO Christophe de Margerie's Death: Conspiracy Theories Swirl
The death of Total Oil CEO Christophe de Margerie on the icy runway of Moscow's Vnukovo airport on Monday night (20 October) is being treated as nothing more than a tragic accident by Russian authorities.
Investigators claimed that the oil executives private jet crashed into a snow plough, whose driver was drunk at the wheel, killing three people on board.
Moscow transport authorities also said they are investigating 'negligence' by airport authorities and have arrested four officials.
Yet the controversial magnate's demise, only hours after engaging in high-level talks with Russian Prime Minister Dmitri Medvedev to discuss foreign investment in Russia, has prompted a flurry of speculation online that his death was far from accidental.
The lawyer of Vladimir Martynenko, the plough driver, yesterday (21 October) described accusations that his client was drunk as "groundless" and implied that he was being set-up.
Most rumours allege Western or Ukrainian complicity in the crash.
They focus on de Margerie's opposition to anti-Russian Western sanctions, with Total, one of the biggest foreign investors in Russia, recently announcing plans to double its oil output from the country by 2020.
In July, de Margerie told Reuters that Europe should not be thinking about how to reduce its reliance on Russian gas, but instead be focussing on how to make those supplies safer.
"Russia is out partner," he said in a recent interview, and claimed that he believed that oil should not be paid for in dollars, but in euros.
On a YouTube video uploaded by Russian news site Newsanna, Vladimir Viktorovich Prokhvatilov, billed as a teacher at Moscow's military academy, speculates darkly about Western involvement, and sets the tone for much of the Russian conspiracy theories.
"This is to be expected," he said.
But such watchdogs are best known for harassing businesses and organisations, shaking them down for bribes," notes an editorial.
It is not only in Russia that suspicion of foul play has been aired.
On the Empty Wheel website, founded by civil liberties journalist Marcy Wheeler, poster Rayne argues that the evidence presented about the crash so far is contradictory, and scepticism about the view that the crash was accidental is warranted.
"Who or what benefited the most from de Margerie's untimely demise?" Rayne asks, and points not only to Total's involvement in Russia, but also in Iran where, prior to Western sanctions in 2009, the company helped to develop the South Pars gas field.
"My hinky meter is stuck somewhere between Suspicious and Disbelieving as to the real cause of the CEO's death."
Russia's pro-Kremlin daily Kommersant published a slew of articles, alleging Ukrainian involvement.
"The question remains why he was drunk, although previously did not drink because of health problems?"
"Think about it: if a man made an offer he can not refuse," writes Alexander Zhilin, hinting that the driver of the plough may have been bribed to have drunk at work, diverting attention from those who staged the crash.
Though perhaps not to be taken too seriously, the speculation is hardly surprising given what some have described as a "secret war" by the West and its oil-producing allies to damage Russian and Iranian economies through deflating oil prices.
"This is business, but it also has the feel of war by other means: oil," writes Thomas Friedman in the New York Times.
The oil price lows have sparked fierce anti-western rhetoric in sections of the Russian media.
"Obama Wants Saudi Arabia to Destroy Russian Economy", proclaimed a recent Pravda headline.
The Moscow Times however, struck a more sensible note on the de Margerie death, pointing instead to Russia's appalling transport infrastructure, and the widespread corruption of those tasked with overseeing its safety as factors that could have contributed to the crash.
"Public safety is compromised because of negligence on the part of the authorities tasked with upholding it.
Russian President Vladimir Putin described De Margerie as "a true friend of our country, whom we will remember with the greatest warmth".
Just hours before the crash, De Margerie had met Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev at his country residence outside Moscow to discuss foreign investment in Russia, the Vedomosti business daily reported.
Fire on the tarmac
In a statement confirming the tragedy, Total said De Margerie "died just after 10 pm (Paris time) (2000 GMT) on October 20 in a private plane crash at Vnukovo Airport in Moscow, following a collision with a snow removal machine."
"Four people were found dead at the scene of the accident, including three crew members and Christophe de Margerie."
The Vnukovo airport said in a statement that the Falcon Dassault business aviation jet crashed as it prepared to take off for Paris.
Visibility was 350 metres (yards) at the time of the accident, the airport said, as Moscow saw its first snowfall of the winter on Monday.
The airport said its rescue services were sent to the scene and "immediately started extinguishing a fire that had broken out".
Experts from the Interstate Aviation Committee, which investigates all Russian air accidents, and officials from Russia's federal aviation agency have launched a probe into the accident.
The investigating committee said in a statement that "it has been established that the driver of the snowplough was in a drunken state".
It added that a primary preliminary theory was that "an error by air traffic controllers and the actions of the snowplough driver" were to blame.
The possible role of "bad weather and errors by pilots will also be checked," it said.
The plane's black boxes have been recovered, airport spokeswoman Yelena Krylova told the RIA Novosti news agency.
Moscow transport investigators said in a statement they had opened a criminal probe into breaches of aviation safety rules causing multiple deaths through negligence, which carries a maximum jail term of seven years.
France said Tuesday it will dispatch three experts to join in the investigation.
The airport was closed temporarily to clear up the scene of the accident but resumed normal operations at 1:30 am (2130 GMT Monday)
CEO since 2007
De Margerie had been chief executive of Total, Europe's third largest oil company after BP and Shell, since 2007, and spent his entire career there.
A descendant of a family of diplomats and business leaders, he was the grandson of Pierre Taittinger, founder of the eponymous champagne and the luxury goods dynasty.
Married with three children and highly regarded within the oil industry, he was known for his good humour.
De Margerie had taken over the helm of Total at a time when the company was embroiled in several legal woes.
Shortly after his nomination, he was handcuffed and taken into police custody for more than 24 hours over corruption claims in deals with Iran.
He also had to defend Total against allegations of corruption during the UN "oil-for-food" programme in Iraq.
De Margerie admitted the claims had taken their toll on the company.
Russian investigators said Tuesday the driver of the snow-clearing machine was drunk and that his actions, along with "an error by air traffic controllers", appeared to be to blame for the crash.
Total, Europe's third largest oil company, confirmed the death of its 63-year-old boss known affectionately as the "Big Moustache" because of his distinctive facial hair and said its board would call an emergency meeting.
The group's stocks slid 2.0 percent at start of trading Tuesday on the accident, but then quickly recovered.
While admired by the industry for expanding Total's activities around the world, he was also often in controversy for helming Total when it was embroiled in judicial woes including the UN "oil-for-food" scandal.
French President Francois Hollande said he learnt of De Margerie's death with "shock and sadness" while Prime Minister Manuel Valls said France had lost "a great captain of industry and a patriot".
Condolences and tributes poured in from other political leaders.