8 years for ATC murder
 

However tragic the death of this man's family is, this is a ludicrously low sentence for such a crime. If Swizerland is anything like the UK, he will no doubt with 'good behaviour' be out in 4 years. What is most disturbing here is the acceptance that somehow this could be a reasonable response to the controller's death. It is bringing into Western Europe concepts of 'vendetta' and mafia-type values which should be challenged at every turn. This guy knowinly decided to kill an Air Traffic Controller for a professional error. Such an act is the worst sort of pre-meditated criminality and should have resulted in a life sentence. The Swiss have seriously failed their own citizens in this and opened the door to every type of revenge killing on a whim.

A tragic story, hard to believe that it all really happened. I wouldn’t be amazed if it’s turned into a docu-drama or something similar, I’m also surprised that it hasn’t been reported on TV (as far as I know).

My condolences to everyone touched by this terrible event.

NSF
I doubt the father concerned was too worried about whether a "professional error" or "deliberate act" killed his wife and two children. For him, he lost his family, three people. In circumstances which none of us is ever likely to experience or appreciate. So I for one would certainly not want to judge him. The "light sentence" is an acknowledgement of these circumstances.

Agreed, however the controller leaves behind a family also. If I remember correctly, he was assassinated in front of them.

Has/will anyone from Skyguide senior management face(d) any charges.....?

I think it's known as Diminished Responsibility.

Just make sure your name is kept out of the papers if you ever where to be involved in anything like this. There might be someone with 'diminished responsibility' coming after you.

I believe a key question is whether the Swiss bore any responsibility during this incident. The Russian acted out of anger/grief for the loss of his family. That, in my opinion, is no excuse to off an ATC who has made a mistake, however critical.

The question is, I believe, whether the Swiss have acknowleded their terrible mistake whereby the two aircraft collided and what is going on in the courts to sue the hell out of anyone that was connected from dustbin sweeper on up. I'm sure the buzzards have been working on it from day one.

8 years for a premeditated murder is ridiculus. It's not as if the ATC PLANNED to kill those people.

And if this guy killed the head of the company providing the ATC, he would have gotten more?
I bet he would, because "everyone knows" that management had nothing to do with the stituation.

Does anyone know if he has a paroll period?


8 Years seems very light for Muder1, and the way in which he did it.

I watched the air crash investigation relating to this crash and apparently the ATC man was off'd in front of his wife and child.

He should get life no matter how harsh his his circumstances were

that is my 2 cents

There has been a TV program about the collision as well as the official report. The Russian killed the wrong person.

Both make it quite clear that Swiss controller personally was not at fault but his company was. The shortcomings in the control centre that night were critical to the collision occurring.

In summary there was engineering work being conducted that night that removed most of the controllers telephone connections as well as the warning system of an impending collision. He was also distracted by having to work another aircraft that was on approach elsewhere and because of the telephone being disconnected he could not call the other controller who was in the rest room at the time.

The final hole in the Swiss cheese scenario (please excuse the pun) was that the controller did recognise the danger before the collision and called on the Russian aircraft to descend just after the TCAS in that aircraft had called for a climb. The DHL aircraft TCAS had called for a descent. The Russian crew obeyed the controller rather than the TCAS. The controller was not aware that the TCAS had activated.

The rest is, as they say, history.

There are several issues being discussed here. One is the murder of the ATCO, one the trail and the verdict and one the circumstances that led to the accident.

In as far as the trail of Vitali Kalojew is concerned, it was a very fast process to the surprise of all, I think. After just 2 days, the court retired to deliberate on the sentence. Vitali Kalojew never denied that he did commit the murder, he did however say that he has no recollection of his action during the event. According to the shrinks this is indeed a very plausible statement. And yes, he did kill the ATCO in front of his family just outside their home.
The sentence of eight years seams light for murder 1 and as some have mentioned, with good conduct he will be paroled after a few years. Under the circumstances I think it really doesn’t matter. 8, 10, 12 or more years or even the death sentence, the live of Vitali Kalojew has been over at the moment of the accident. I believe that the court took these thought into consideration. Some people can handle the loose of a loved one better then others, Vitali Kalojew obviously wasn’t able to cope with it.

Now, the accident in itself is a different story. The trail there is still ongoing. It will be very difficult to blame a single person though every single person could have prevented the accident. The controller by separating the aircraft 30min. prior, the engineers by better informing the ATCO of what he is doing on a live system, the Russian pilot by following TCAS orders timely and precisely, Munich (Frankfurt?)center by intervening much earlier.

All in all this is freak accident. I know that midair collisions have happened before but ENRT in a virtually empty airspace?

If this BBC report Link is correct (unlikely I know!) he was not charged with Murder. So all those above, including the original report are technically incorrect speaking of "Premeditated Murder" "Murder1" or whatever: So he got right in the middle of the 2... Difficult one, but the real problem is how/why the ATCO name and address became known...

The system failed Vitali as well.
 

As aviation professionals we recognise that the system failed the ATCo... he was left to do his job without the technical and human resourses he should have had. He was not at fault, but his error contributed to the accident.

What of Vitali K? He helped organise the flight to Barcelona and lost his wife and children as a result... his emotional life was destroyed with that aircraft. To try to understand what he felt is beyond me and, I think, most of us.

Was his plight recognisable? It is now! Where was the support that Vitali needed?

The death of the ATCo is his fault, but ....

NigelOnDraft

You, the BBC report is correct. Premeditated killing is a lesser charge than murder under Swiss law. The difference, if I understand correctly, is that premeditated murder occurs in on a plan and in full consciousness. Premeditated killing is if you may have the intention to do so but the actual killing is resulting in an affect.

BOPralph, you must be kidding!
So he decided in a premeditated act to destroy the 'emotional life' (as you put it) of the controllers wife and child by terminating the 'controller'? Is this how they do business in Russia? (I think so, I observed the loading of a western business man's coffin into my 737 at St Petersburg- rubbed out for 'business reasons').
Premeditated murder is murder plus a bit. The evilness comes from it being planned rather than a sudden mental outburst. If any sentence deserved life, this was it. I find it difficult to have any sympathy for him. He should be locked away for 20 years after parole. The message is 'you can do it, and it may not cost too much!'

Like I said, this is known as Diminished Responsibility.

This is where a sentence is reduced from a Murder charge to Manslaughter or Murder 2 or whatever it is called in Swiss law.

It takes into account the state of mind of the defendant at the time the crime was committed.

Keyloyev's mental functions were impaired due to the loss of his family and therefore could not be held 'criminally' liable.

atc killer
 

hi all,

according to the accident report by the german investigation bureau was it the russian pilot who ignored a TCAS Climb call. i learned that tcas orders overrule all atc orders.
maybe mr. kalojev hasn't read that. the sentence is too low.
our nice swiss court allows "mafia"-like revenge feelings to reduce the sentence.
and now he sits in a swiss prison. he should get kicked off out of our country.
cheers

Studi:
From what I remember the ATCo ('Peter X' at the time)was living under a witness protection type relocation.

Kalojew hired detectives, and tracked him down with great difficulty.

He claims this was purely to show him pictures of his dead children. By some fluke he obviously (and entirely accidentally/without premeditation) happened to be armed at the time!

I'm not so sure that there is anything obvious about this not being premeditated.

Yes, tragic for all involved. However the ATCo made one of an entire series of mistakes (and if you count thoses responsible for the phone system and the Russian pilot ignoring TCAS not the biggest mistake either) - Kalojew killed a man in cold blood in front of his family.

Its worth noting that the Russian crew were highly experienced, with a training captain and captain occupying the front seats. Although the pilots were trained to respond to a TCAS resolution, it must have been difficult to purposely disobey a radar advised ATC instruction.

"It always seems an easy decision when were sat down here on a warm sunny day"

Jail the Detectives
 

Sounds to me like the detectives were accessories before the fact. Sharing Kalojew's cell for the next 8 years would be about right:mad:

No, mercenary pilot. Experienced or not this 'accident' should have been no more than an air miss. It doesn't take much experience or nous to understand that TCAS is the last line of defence and you always follow it. The acts of this murderer and the Russian crew are symptomatic of the incompetence and violence of this third world state.

See here: http://www.iasa.com.au/folders/Safet...yguided-3.html

and here: http://aviation-safety.net/database/...?id=20010131-2

Now, someone tell me, why ICAO is apparently getting away with it...

:mad:

Studi,

You are correct - I did not attend the tribunal either and my comments are also based on rumours (a proon speciality) and by what I have seen in the media.

The same is probably true of most people here and by necessity (or definition of PPRUNE) most topics discussed here are simply 'trial by media' a situation we all jump up and down about when it refers to an aviation incident where we know a few more of the facts than have been reported.

I would say that 'the law is an ass' is a known saying for a reason (not quite as harsh as that in this case). There are numerous examples such as the judge who determined that a young women who was raped had been 'asking for it' by wearing a short skirt! Examples such as that don't fill me with confidence that all neutral 'justice dispensers' are any more infallible than anyone else.

Those 'facts' (I accept they are unsubstantiated) I mentioned may have been taken into account, may have been disproved, may have been entirely speculative or fictional - I don't know.

All I can do is add my tuppenceworth and read everone elses (some better informed than others) and give my opinion. That way we can all comment on cases we don't have first hand knowledge of and hopefully learn from someone who does -I find that also works for things like dinner party conversation; if I only entered conversations about subjects I knew indise out and could back up with documented evidence I would be a lot quieter (and I wouldn't learn as much by being corrected/informed by those more learned on a sublject than myself)

But after all that - I personally still find it hard to believe that he tracked Peter X down internationally and approached him with a wepon which he then used to murder him in cold blood (and in front of his family) without any degree of premeditation.

Sorry, not buying that diminshed responsibility, anguished grieving, I-didn't-know-what-I-was-doing stuff!

Community living, no matter what country you live in, relies on people making good choices that don't harm others regardless of their emotional state. Otherwise, let's get rid of all our laws and act on our animal impulses.

When someone like this Russian takes it upon himself to inflict the kind of damage he did to the controllers family, we get anarchy. If he gets out in a few years and has another traumatic episode that triggers another killing, do you want to be on the receiving end?

And what's this " group of people that have have far more insight into the law than we as normal people have?". If you mean that they can recite the law better, I concede, but if you mean that legislators around the world draft good laws and deliver just verdicts faultlessly, you've got to be kidding!

I know the awful feeling that comes from a terrible loss but this ATCO and his family did not deserve this. I hope the appeal court gives the Russian life and throws away the key.:*

The question asked in an earlier posting was what consequences have the Skyguide management faced as a result of this disaster?

To my knowledge, there have been no terminations, no resignations, and even the Swiss Transport Minister has refused to accept responsibility for the absolute sh1thouse Skyguide operated on that fatal night.

:yuk:

Alpha Leader,

Tell us somethimg about your ATC background, will ya?

Alpha Leader
 

Apart from the fact that this is way of the topic, I'd rather fly through Swiss air space than through Indian. No offence intended. Other then that I'd like to double on Spuds question!

For anyone interested, National Geographic are repeating the 'Aircrash Investigations' documentary on this incident at 11pm tonight, UK time.

N380UA, Spuds McKenzie:

Skyguide were, on that particular evening, in violation of their very own operating rules, including - but not limited to - the fact that only one controller was in attendance.

Any more questions?

Elaborate on those rules, Skyguide was in violation of, Alpha Leader.

And tell us what would have happened if both crews had been following TCAS.

I think, this was coldblooded murder. Nothing else. I dont care about why and how.

If murder isn´t punished any more...

There is a lenghty article in the german news-mag "Der Spiegel", telling the story how this guy became obsessed with the question: who is guilty and who apologizes to me. Apparently in his culture one has to crawl 500 meters under constant excuses if he has done harm...

Sure there are mistakes done by swisscontrol, which didn´t want to apologize,sure this guy has rights too (and one can understand that he went mad), but this poor danish swiss atco had the right to live.

In the UK we have had several recent cases of corperate manslaughter been bought, particularly after railway accidents.
In most of them, no one individual could be indentified as being the person whose incompetence premeditated the accident or incident, although it's obvious, that, as in this case, corporate greed was the overiding factor.

Frankly, I am amazed that none of the relatives affected by any of these other incidents, have not taken the direct action which the Russian chap did.

I don't condone his actions, clearly he was severely traumatised and probably went a lot further than he intended to, but in the same situation, who are any of us to judge him?

Credentials aside, Mr McKenzie, Alpha Leader makes an important point, which I as a fully paid-up member of the ATC fraternity totally agree with.

I don't know where you work, but I'll take a wild guess and say ScOACC. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong. Now, how would you feel if management told you that as well as controlling a bandboxed area sector at night (say, Humber/Montrose), you also have to provide approach services to aircraft landing at, say, Aberdeen airport? You are operating from two different consoles, with two different frequencies. The only aid to your job is one of those fancy office chairs with the reclining backrest and friction-free wheels. To make matters worse, those pesky engineers are fiddling with the phones, so none of them work properly.

No matter how quiet these sectors are, I don't think any of us working at a UK ATC unit would tolerate those conditions. And nor should we.

In my opinion, Skyguide have a majority shareholding in the blame for not just one, but two crimes. Firstly, the system at Zurich that night was so seriously degraded that the duty ATCO was unable to provide safe air traffic services to the aircraft under his control. The link in Mercenary Pilot's post illustrates this quite well. Secondly, someone in that company has released the ATCO's name to the media, which has ultimately resulted in his murder. Now I don't care whether the name was officially released, or unofficially "leaked" - the fact is that the man's name should never have been in the public domain.

This is an open forum and I don't think Alpha Leader should be disqualified from making valid comments just because his profile doesn't say "ATCO". Those who criticise should either bring something meaningful to the discussion, or wind their necks in.

LTP

niknak

Every time the court system hands down a verdict, a judgement is made. Judgements are made by the zillion every day and will continue to be made at that rate till the cows come home.

Almost every law we have is designed to protect the community at large and is meant to ensure that emotional outbursts are at least tempered by an understanding that your actions will have consequences. Of course people often don't think about those consequences when they're in the heat of emotional turmoil but I will always be asking that offenders of any description who hurt/kill anyone for whatever reason be held to account. To not do so is to invite random violence by those who, for whatever reason, cannot hold their feelings in check. I don't want my children to live in a world where unrestrained emotions are in any way condoned.

I will judge the Russian and say that he was wrong...no qualifiers. If I should ever do the same thing, you should hold me to that same standard.

Tragic story, beginning with dozens dead, one killing and a prison sentance... but it seems to have brought out the amateur lawyers from across the world, who sadly seem to have nothing better to do than discuss Swiss Law (which presumably few actually understand?) Pointless!

LostThePicture,

Check your PMs.

@Pierre, like has been said on this and many other boards before, it is pointless to rant about people discussing matters they are not professionals in

of course it is your well deserved right to rant about it if you have nothing better to do ;)