Minister Says Court Must Decide Liability in Bek Air Case

Transport Minister Nurlan Sauranbayev addressed the high-profile Bek Air trial, Orda.kz reports.

The case has sparked debate in society, as many question the fairness of naming the late pilots as defendants.

Nurlan Sauranbayev stressed that the commander of an aircraft carries exceptional responsibility:

The aircraft commander has unique rights. Many questions: to land, not to land, to take off, what degree of treatment to do - these questions lie with him. Therefore, the commander has a very large amount of responsibility. And the key question that was there was when the plane was supposed to take off, it was decided to treat only the tail section with anti-icing fluid. And they wanted to clean the wings using the built-in system. Unfortunately, this system did not work, as far as I understand. This decision, in my understanding, was one of the key ones, said Nurlan Sauranbayev at a press conference in the government.

The court will take all these nuances into account. Because the ship's commander, despite the fact that he makes the decision, is certainly under pressure from the company's management. They can force him to save money and so on. The court and the prosecutor's office will sort all this out - what kind of pressure the ship's commander experienced at the time of making his decision, explained Nurlan Sauranbaev.

He added that the airline’s leadership would not escape accountability:

No one will absolve the management and shareholders of Bek Air of responsibility. It is necessary to understand very clearly that now a 'bare', technical investigation is underway. They are only determining the causes. And then other court decisions will begin. That is, we must wait until the end, so that they find out why this happened. And then they will sort out everything else. But in any case, of course, part of the blame, how it will be distributed - to shareholders, managers, the ship's commander, this is what the court will determine,the minister added.

The latest hearing saw Nurlan Zhumasultanov testify as a witness with the right to defense. He denied being the airline’s head, despite having previously stated the opposite during the investigation.

Original Author: Zhadra Zhulmukhametova