Embraer says it stopped servicing Prigozhin's aircraft in 2019

Brazilian Embraer stopped serving Yevgeny Prigozhin's plane back in 2019 due to US sanctions against the founder of PMC Wagner. They emphasized that they did not have additional information about the crash of an Embraer ERG 135 aircraft (tail number RA-02795) at Pulkovo Airport, May 2023

Brazilian Embraer, the manufacturer of Yevgeny Prigozhin's crashed business jet, said it stopped servicing the aircraft in 2019 due to US sanctions. About it with reference to the statement of the company writes REUTERS .

Embraer told the agency that the company is aware of the Legacy 600 plane crash in the Tver region, but it does not have additional information on this case and has not serviced the aircraft since 2019. “Embraer has complied with the international sanctions imposed on RUSSIA,” the company stressed.

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The U.S. Treasury imposed sanctions on the plane in 2019 , accusing Prigozhin of trying to interfere in the 2018 U.S. elections. The aircraft was placed on the sanctions list with the old registration code M-SAAN, but its identification codes match those of the crashed aircraft with tail number RA-02795 listed in the Russian aircraft registry, Reuters writes. The same business jet was seen flying to Belarus from Russia after an attempted mutiny by PMC Wagner at the end of June.

Another Embraer Legacy aircraft with the number RA-02748 is also associated with Prigozhin. As follows from the data of the FlightRadar service, on August 23, he first flew from Moscow to St. Petersburg, where he landed at 18:19 Moscow time, and already at 18:59 Moscow time he took off from St. Petersburg. An hour later, he landed at the Ostafyevo airport near Moscow. According to the flight schedule, the same business jet was supposed to fly from Moscow to Baku on Thursday, August 24, at 16:00 Moscow time.

The Embraer Legacy business jet crashed near the village of Kuzhenkino in the Bologovsky district in the north-west of the Tver region. According to the Russian Emergencies Ministry , there were ten people on board the aircraft, which flew from Moscow  to St. Petersburg (three of them were crew members). All on board were killed, the ministry said in a statement.

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The Federal Air Transport Agency reported that Evgeny Prigozhin and Dmitry Utkin are among the passengers of the plane. That is the name of the founder of PMC "Wagner" and the commander of a military company.

Later, Vladimir Rogov, a member of the main council of the military-civilian administration of the Zaporozhye region, said in his TELEGRAM channel that outstanding “musicians” (as the fighters of PMC “Wagner” are called) confirmed the death of Prigozhin and Utkin in a plane crash.

Upon the crash of a business jet, the UK opened a criminal case under Art. 263 of the Criminal Code (violation of the rules of traffic safety and operation of air transport). RBC's source in law enforcement said that the investigation is considering various versions of the crash of the business jet, including pilot error, technical problems and external influence.

President Volodymyr Zelensky ruled out Ukraine's involvement in the crash of Prigozhin's plane. “We have nothing to do with this,” he said.

In the past, there have already been cases when Prigozhin was declared dead. In 2019, an An-72 crashed in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, on board of which, as it was initially reported, there could be a businessman, but later it turned out that this was not the case.