EmailFrench authorities have opened a manslaughter investigation after it emerged that the driver of a snow plough involved in a plane crash that killed the head of French oil company Total was drunk.
Christophe de Margerie, the chief executive of Total, was killed when his private jet collided with a snow plough in poor visibility at Moscow’s Vnukovo international airport on Monday night. He was the only passenger. All three members of the crew were also killed.
Russia’s Investigative Committee, an agency which answers to President Vladimir Putin, said: “At the moment, it is already established that the driver of the snow plough was in a condition of alcoholic intoxication.”
The committee has opened a criminal investigation into breach of safety standards. According to Russian news agency TASS, the driver of the snow plough is being questioned and several airport employees will “probably” be suspended from work during the investigation.
In a statement the oil company said: “Total confirms with deep regret and great sadness that chairman and CEO Christophe de Margerie died just after 10pm (Paris time) on October 20 in a private plane crash at Vnukovo airport in Moscow, following a collision with a snow removal machine.”
The driver, named as Vladimir Martynenko, denies any guilt, his lawyer said.
“He (Martynenko) is in shock. He considers himself guiltless as he followed all the instructions from the dispatcher,” lawyer Alexander Karabanov told Reuters.
President Francois Hollande led tributes to France’s best known captain of industry. In a statement he described De Margerie, 63, as a talented boss with “great ambitions” for Total, which “he had placed among the ranks of the top world businesses.”
France’s prime minister Manuel Valls, said he had lost a personal friend. “France is losing an extraordinary business leader who turned Total into a world giant.”
Pierre Moscovici, France’s former finance minister, paid tribute to de Margerie as “a great captain of industry, a patriot, a man of conviction and friendship”.
Total staff arriving for work in Paris on Tuesday morning expressed shock at the death of their boss, who was known as “big moustache” because of his bushy facial hair.
Touché par la mort de C. de Margerie: un grand capitaine d'industrie, un patriote, un homme de conviction et d'amitié. Tristesse et respect
— Pierre Moscovici (@pierremoscovici) October 21, 2014
Tributes also poured in from the business world, including Lord Browne, the former chief executive of BP, who said de Margerie was “a creative, inspiring, breath of fresh air”.
A very sad day. Christophe de Margerie of @Total was a creative, inspiring, breath of fresh air, severely missed by me and the oil industry.
— John Browne (@LordJohnBrowne) October 21, 2014
Putin sent condolences in a telegram to theÉlysée presidential palace, where he described de Margerie as an outstanding entrepreneur. “We have lost a genuine friend of our country,” he said. Putin’s spokesmen Dmitry Peskov told Russian news wires that Putin had been in “close working contact” with de Margerie and appreciated his contribution to French-Russian relations.
Russia’s former finance minister Alexei Kudrin said de Margerie had done a lot to bring investment to Russia and described his death as a “heavy tragedy”.
De Margerie was on a list of attendees at a Russian government meeting on foreign investment in Gorki, near Moscow, on Monday. Hours before his death de Margerie met the Russian prime minister, Dmitry Medvedev, at his country residence outside Moscow to discuss foreign investment in Russia, according to the business daily Vedomosti.
The Falcon Dassault business aviation jet crashed as it prepared to take off for Paris with De Margerie and three crew on board. “During run-up at 11.57pm there was a collision with the airport’s snow plough. As a result of the crash the passenger and all the crew members died,” the Vnukovo airport said in a statement. The driver of the snowplough survived.
The airport said that visibility was at 350 metres at the time of the accident. Moscow saw its first snowfall of the winter on Monday. A fire broke out after the crash and was extinguished by airport firefighters.
Moscow transport investigators said they had opened a criminal probe into breaches of aviation safety rules causing multiple deaths through negligence. Three French experts have been dispatched to Moscow for the investigation, and Paris prosecutors said they were also opening a manslaughter investigation because of the French nationality of the victims. The plane’s black boxes had been removed for examination.
De Margerie, a graduate of the Ecole Superieure de Commerce in Paris, became chief executive officer of Total in February 2007, taking on the additional role of chairman in May 2010, after previously running its exploration and production division.
De Margerie said in July that he should be judged based on new projects launched under his watch, such as a string of African fields, and that Total would seek a successor from within the company rather than an outsider. Philippe Boisseau, head of Total’s new energy division, and Patrick Pouyanne, who was tasked with reducing the group’s exposure to unprofitable European refining sectors, have long been seen as potential heirs.
A staunch defender of Russia and its energy policies during the conflict in Ukraine, De Margerie told Reuters in a July interview that Europe should stop thinking about cutting its dependence on Russian gas and focus instead on making those deliveries safer.
He said tensions between the west and Russia were pushing Moscow closer to China, as illustrated by a $400bn deal to supply Beijing with gas that was clinched in May.
Total is one of the major oil companies most exposed to Russia, where its output will double to represent more than a tenth of its global portfolio by 2020.
But its future in Russia grew cloudy after the 17 July downing of a Malaysian passenger airliner over Ukrainian territory held by pro-Russian rebels. The disaster worsened the oil-rich country’s relations with the west and raised the threat of deeper sanctions.
Total is the fourth largest by market value of the western world’s top oil companies behind Exxon, Royal Dutch Shell and Chevron. Russia accounted for about 9% of Total’s oil and gas output in 2013.
The oil company had forecast in April that Russia would become its biggest source of oil and gas by 2020 due to its partnership with the Russian energy company Novatek and the Yamal project.
Total SA is France’s second-biggest listed company with a market value of €102bn. The company announced on Tuesday that a board meeting would be held as soon as possible to discuss the future. But French Economy Minister Emmanuel Macron said there should be “no concern about the future of Total” which had a large talent pool from which to pick a new CEO.
Like other big oil companies Total has been under pressure from shareholders to cut costs and raise dividends as rising costs in the industry and weaker oil prices squeeze profitability.
De Margerie was the son of diplomats and business leaders, and the grandson of Pierre Taittinger, founder of Taittinger champagne and the luxury goods dynasty.
“His death is a big loss for the global oil/gas industry,” said Gordon Kwan, head of Asia-Pacific oil and gas research at the financial company Nomura.
