The Main Investigative Department has completed the investigation of a criminal case against the owner of a trike that crashed in the Vitebsk region.

As reported earlier, in the evening of August 10, the police received a message that a trike had fallen into a reservoir in the Vitebsk region during a flight. Law enforcement officers immediately went to the scene.

Following the investigation, a family came from Vitebsk to fly in a trike. The first passenger was a 17-year-old girl, then it was the turn of her relative. During the flight over the Dobrino Lake in the Vitebsk region, the trike which belonged to a 61-year-old local resident fell from a height of 10 meters into the water and sank to the bottom. The man was able to get out of the water, but the passenger, a 39-year-old woman, could not be saved.

The investigators performed a painstaking work to identify the circumstances of the incident. The accused, the victim and witnesses were questioned, the documentation was examined. The Aviation Department of the Ministry of Transport and Communications of the Republic of Belarus performed an inspection, the results of which are attached to the case file. State Forensic Examination Committee provided with expert opinions, including the examination of the technical condition of the trike.

The investigation revealed that the accused did not have the permit to operate an aircraft and to use the airspace of the Republic of Belarus for flights and a pilot's license.

It follows from the materials of the criminal case that before the flight the man did not make sure that the amount of fuel was enough for a safe flight and chose an unsuitable runway, which all together resulted in tragedy.

After the trike crashed into the water, the accused did not take measures to ensure the safety of his passenger who could not leave the trike on her own due to fastened seat belts, did not help her, and swam away from the scene to the shore.

Based on results of the investigation, the actions of a 61-year-old resident of the Vitebsk region were qualified by the investigation as violation of the rules of safety and operation of air transport by a person obliged to follow these rules by virtue of the job performed, which caused the death of a person by negligence (Part 2, Article 314 of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Belarus) and deliberate abandonment in danger committed by a person who, by his own negligence, put the victim in a life- and health-threatening condition (Part 3, Article 159 of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Belarus).

The investigation of the crime is complete, the case file was forwarded to the prosecutor for submission to the court.

Department of information and public relations