DPA/Reuters/AFP/Moscow/Paris

French oil giant Total was in mourning yesterday for its charismatic chief executive Christophe de Margerie, who was killed in a collision at a Moscow airport between his jet and a snowplough.
De Margerie was about to take off for Paris from Vnukovo airport when his Falcon plane collided with the snow clearance vehicle just before midnight (2000 GMT) on Monday, according to Russia’s Investigative Committee.
He and all three crew members on board died after the aircraft caught fire, the agency, which deals with high-profile criminal cases, said.
The snowplough driver, who “was in a state of alcoholic intoxication”, according to the Investigative Committee, escaped with minor injuries.
He was taken into custody.
The claim has been disputed by the driver’s lawyer, who suggested that his client was being made a scapegoat.
“My client has chronic heart disease, he doesn’t drink at all. His relatives and doctors can confirm this,” lawyer Alexander Karabanov told Interfax news agency. “We don’t want the responsibility for the accident to be shifted to just another ordinary man.”
Vladimir Markin, a spokesman for the Investigative Committee, blamed airport authorities, saying that the collision was not the result of “some weird tragic circumstances, as claimed by the airport, but criminal negligence by officials who were unable to ensure coordinated actions by airport staff”.
A number of staff at the airport, which is located some 30km southwest of Moscow and is used also by government officials, would be suspended in order to prevent them from hindering the investigation, Markin added.
France’s civil aviation accidents investigation bureau said it had sent three investigators to assist in the probe.
The plane’s flight data recorders had already been taken from the plane, the committee said.
At the time of the accident, heavy fog with visibility of less than 400m disrupted the work of Moscow’s airports, after a day of slushy snowfall.
Russia’s air safety record is patchy at best.
In December 2012, a Russian airliner flying without passengers broke into pieces after sliding off the runway upon landing and crashing onto a highway outside Vnukovo Airport, killing four of the eight crew members.
Total’s 63-year-old CEO was a household name in France, recognisable by his bushy white moustache.
His plain-spoken manner and sense of humour made him one of the country’s most popular businessmen, who was regularly sought out for comment on the state of French industry.
French President Francois Hollande paid tribute to de Margerie for having “dedicated his life to French industry and the development of the Total group”.
“He raised it to the level of top global world companies,” Hollande said in a statement, praising the businessman’s “independent character” and “attachment to his country”.
Prime Minister Manuel Valls said France had lost “an extraordinary business leader who turned Total into a world giant”.
Ben van Beurden, chief executive of Total’s rival Royal Dutch Shell, said de Margerie had been “a larger than life character, a leader respected across the energy industry and a friend”.
Total expressed “deep regret and great sadness” at his death, which caused Total shares to fall yesterday morning before later recovering.
“Total must keep moving forward,” the secretary general of the group, Jean-Jacques Guilbaud, told reporters at the company’s Paris headquarters, where staff observed a minute of silence.
Similar gestures were reported at Total offices across the world, including in the Republic of the Congo.
“Everybody here is stunned. The atmosphere is really strange,” a Total employee in Congo-Brazzaville’s second city of Pointe-Noire told DPA.
President Vladimir Putin sent his condolences.
“Putin knew de Margerie for a long time and was in close contact with him,” presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov was quoted as saying by the Tass news agency.
De Margerie was a strong opponent of Western economic sanctions against Russia over its actions in Ukraine, and had been attending a meeting on foreign investment with around 30 other foreign executives at Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev’s country residence in Gorki near Moscow.
In his last public remarks in Moscow, de Margerie said Total’s strategy “remains absolutely unchanged. We are engaged with Russia”.
De Margerie told Reuters in July 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.
“Are we going to build a new Berlin Wall?” he said. “Russia is a partner and we shouldn’t waste time protecting ourselves from a neighbour ... What we are looking to do is not to be too dependent on any country, no matter which. Not from Russia, which has saved us on numerous occasions.”
His successor is expected to be chosen from within the group, which is the most valuable listed company in France with revenues of €189.5bn in 2013.
Philippe Boisseau, head of Total’s renewable energy division, and Patrick Pouyanne, who was charged with reducing exposure to unprofitable European refining sectors, have long been seen as potential successors.
Barclays France director Franklin Pichard said that de Margerie’s death “shouldn’t trigger insurmountable management difficulties” at the oil giant.
Ion-Marc Valahu, fund manager at Swiss investment firm Clairinvest, agreed.
“I think the Total management is pretty strong,” he said. “The board has been there for a long time.”

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