MOSCOW, October 24 (RAPSI) - Moscow's Basmanny District Court has sent in pre-trial detention Alexander Kruglov, air traffic controller of Vnukovo airport, over the plane crash that killed Total CEO Cristophe de Margerie, RIA Novosti reports on Friday from the courtroom.

The judge agreed with the investigators argument that outside of detention, the suspect can escape justice, tamper with the evidence and collude with his colleagues to impede the investigation.

The judge refused the 4 million ruble bail the airport was prepared to pay, and ruled to detain Kruglov until December 21.

During the trial, the investigator said that Kruglov was on safety monitoring duty, but “was not engaged in visual monitoring and failed to prevent the jet’s collision with the snowplow”.

The Falcon business jet attempted to take off when it collided with the snowplow at Moscow’s Vnukovo airport. The plane crashed shortly before midnight local time, or 8 pm GMT, on Monday killing Christophe de Margerie and three crew members.

Investigation into the plane crash was launched under an article of the Criminal Code on the violation of safety rules during the movement of aircraft that resulted in the death of more than two persons. Those found guilty face up to seven years in prison.

Four people were arrested so far, including flight director, intern air controller, controller who was at the tower during the crash, and lead engineer of the custodian service.

In the meantime, general director of the airport Andrey Diakov and his deputy Sergey Solntsev resigned over the incident.