The directors of the extinct
Sol Líneas Aéreas
are once again under the magnifying glass of Justice for the
tragedy in which 22 people died in 2011
.
It is that the Federal Chamber of Cassation annulled the dismissal issued by the federal court of Bariloche, urged prosecutors to act urgently and call the accused for an investigation.
On May 18, 2011, the Saab 340 plane registration LV-CEJ de Sol took off from Neuquén to Comodoro Rivadavia with 22 occupants on board but crashed near the towns of Los Menucos and Prahuaniyeu, in Río Negro.
All passengers and crew died.
The decision of Chamber III of the Federal Chamber of Criminal Cassation that was released this Monday renewed the hope of the relatives of the victims to find some justice.
The Cassation sentence annulled the resolution of the Federal Court of Bariloche that had declared the prescription of the criminal action.
Decision ratified, in turn, by the Federal Court of Appeals of General Roca.
The plane crashed near Los Menucos and Prahuaniyeu, in Río Negro.
All passengers and crew died.
Photo Telam
This allowed the dismissal of three directors of the company,
Horacio Angeli (63), Danilo Pojmaevich (60) and Juan Nyffenegger (died at 68)
.
Just five days before the tragedy, the conformation of the board of directors was registered: Angeli was the president and Pojmaevich, the vice.
In addition, judges Mariano Borinsky and Carlos Gemignani ordered that
"with the urgency that the case requires" the case be resolved again
.
The other direct message for the Bariloche Justice, which includes judges and prosecutors, was to highlight that it
never promoted the file in 11 years
, despite the fact that it is an ex officio process.
"The only ones who promoted the case were the plaintiffs. For this reason, Cassation called the attention of the judges who dismissed," they explain to
Clarín
Romina Barreto and Débora Ferrari, lawyers for the families of the pilot Juan Raffo (45) and the passenger Juan Manuel Ruiz (29).
And they clarify about the next steps: "Now the court should impute and
summon the directors to an inquest statement
before May of this year so that the cause does not prescribe. Because the inquest interrupts the limitation period and there we count the 12 years again for it to prescribe."
The last photo of the plane taken by Agustina Piana, a passenger who got off in Mendoza and was saved from the tragedy.
Likewise, Cassation went further by providing that they be charged with a more serious legal classification, which provides for a penalty of
8 to 25 years in prison
(art. 190, third paragraph of the Penal Code) for those who carry out any act that endangers the aircraft safety.
Before, the businessmen were accused of "aggravated culpable havoc" which has a maximum sentence of 5 years (art. 189 Penal Code).
The Federal Court of Bariloche, in charge of the substitute judge Gustavo Villanueva, has to resume the case.
His predecessor, also surrogate,
Gustavo Zapata was the one who acquitted the defendants.
He followed the same line as the previous judge,
Leónidas Moldes
, who, one year after the tragedy, had decreed the lack of merit for the directors.
The lawyers Barreto and Ferrari requested this Tuesday before the federal court of Bariloche the imputation and summons to investigate Angeli and Pojmaevich urgently.
"We are hopeful with this resolution. Our intention was always to get to the truth, which is why we want to exhaust all possible instances," says the pilot's widow, Marcela Bastit, in dialogue with
Clarín
.
Throughout this decade, since the tragedy happened, very few relatives of the victims came forward to be plaintiffs.
Until finally Bastit and Juan Manuel's father, Juan Carlos Ortiz, were left alone.
"It is a case that
was born with an early sentence
and we had to go through a lot and what we had to fight against. They did everything not to investigate, to prescribe and even in advance Judge Moldes determined the lack of merit of the managers, " Ortiz says.
And it details: "In Bariloche there were two files, one for the tragedy and the other for the discovery of two wells in the vicinity of the collection area where
plane and human remains were burned
. From the analysis of the bones, remains of 21 of the 22 victims. Despite this, Moldes quickly filed the file."
Sun Tragedy:
On May 18, 2011, the pilot Juan Raffo and his co-pilot Adriano Bolatti left the city of Córdoba on the Saab 340 plane registration LV-CEJ with nine passengers on board.
They made a stopover in Mendoza and then arrived at the Neuquén City International Airport.
The crew
could not find out about the weather conditions
on the route to their next destination, Comodoro Rivadavia, because the Meteorological Service office in that city worked from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. That is what the Accident Investigation Board report reveals. of Civil Aviation (JIAAC).
The complaint denounces the discovery of wells where human remains and the plane were burned.
Photo Jose Luis Perroni
For this reason, the last part was that of 3:00 p.m., according to the lawyer Barreto, which made it outdated.
However, the pilot asked Commander Hugo Rodríguez -who had just piloted a recent flight from Comodoro- about the status of the route.
He told her that "it was good, normal."
Although the stewardess of that flight declared that
they had had turbulence due to icing
and serious problems to arrive safely.
The plane took off with the aim of landing in Comodoro Rivadavia at 21:58.
That never happened.
At 8:50 p.m. an alarm was issued declaring a state of emergency.
The aircraft lost control due to
"severe icing"
on the wings, that is, "icing".
The crew members tried to request help from the Ezeiza and Comodoro Rivadavia control towers, but were unable to as
the plane did not have high-frequency (VHF) communication equipment
.
Less than half an hour later they crashed in the Prahuaniyeu area, in Río Negro.
The outcome would have been different, explains the lawyer, if the pilot had been able to receive instructions from the towers on what to do or where to go.
"The pilot was not trained by the company to carry out aircraft recovery maneuvers in icing situations in an area that normally freezes," explains Barreto.
And he clarifies that "the managers are not the only ones responsible for what happened, but also the ANAC (National Civil Aviation Administration)".
All controls failed and resulted in the death of 22 people.
MG
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