On June 26, Shirak District Court of First Instance, Gyumri, announced Commander of the 1st level training aviation squadron of the Ministry of Defense, Major Sargis Hakobyan’s verdict, in an expedited procedure. He was convicted of the crime by the Criminal Code, Article 378, Section 1. The Court found Sargis Hakobyan guilty and sentenced to imprisonment for 2 years. His punishment conventionally will not been applied. The Court, in fact, defined 2 years probation, which the major appeals at RA Criminal and Military Court of Appeals. Signature for not leaving the country was chosen as a preventive measure against the major. At the end of the trial with expedited procedure, the evidences obtained by the criminal case filed by military garrison prosecutor’s office of Shirak Marz were not investigated. It turned out that Sargis Hakobyan, being an aviation training squadron commander, has many years experience in military aircraft flight. But, exactly one year ago, on this day, during the planned and training flights carried out in the military unit, he had violated the rules provided for by the Flight Operations Guidelines, Articles 515 and 577, which negligently caused grave consequences. In the military plane, right after the flight, due to the air and smoke getting into the cabin of pilots ordered the pilot, lieutenant Aghassi Isakhanyan to turn off the air conditioner. According to the case materials, on the 60th second of the flight, lieutenant A. Isakhanyan reduced the engine control handle to 90 %, instead of 80% to get up to 100 % maximum rounds of the engine, but seeing that the engine rounds were not reduced to the maximum, he reported about it to Major S. Hakobyan.
The latter took control of the plane from that moment on. Hakobyan’s actions had caused a slight rounds of the engine, 2-3% variation. He promptly reported about it to the flight leader, Lieutenant Colonel Garik Khnusyan. S. Hakobyan made a dramatic U-turn in the direction toward the landing path, but he had not noticed it for about 15-20 seconds. After the last report on possible engine failure, he was completely carried away by “looking for the landing path.” During the whole process, S. Hakobyan, according to the prosecution, did not follow the high speed of the plane, which was 370-420 km/h, due to which the closing wings of the plane did not open before landing. Landing was made at a high speed of 300 km/h, about 1200 meters from the end of landing path. Immediately after landing, S. Hakobyan had pushed the air brake handle, but seeing that they are not enough to stop, had applied to the emergency brakes for help. Seeing that it was impossible to stop the plane on the landing path, S. Hakobyan diverted the plane to the left, beyond the boundaries of the landing path and got into the filed, passing about 320 meters and crashed into a rocky hill, the accident occurred. As a result of mentioned actions, Major S. Hakobyan inflicted the state a damage of 150,000 USD equivalent to 61,075,500 drams, and a damage of 257,860, 912 drams as a result of fuel lubricants loss, totally, at large, 61,333,360,912 AMD property damage. The trial of S. Hakobyan’s appeal at the RA Criminal Court of Appeal is scheduled for November 29.
Ruzan Minasyan
