Aircraft commander Prigozhin found in St. Petersburg

Alexey Lapshin managed to fly more than 3000 hours

The crew of Evgeny Prigozhin’s Embraer-135 private plane, which crashed on August 23 in the Tver region, consisted of three people. These are aircraft commander Alexei Levshin, co-pilot Rustam Karimov and flight attendant Kristina Raspopova. They all died. Friends shared their memories of them.

The aircraft commander, 51-year-old Alexei Levshin, was an experienced pilot. His friends say that he was born and raised in the Tambov region. The path to the sky for Alexei began at the Sasovo Civil Aviation Flight School, which is well known in the aviation community. The guy stood out among the cadets with determination and endurance.

Alexei began his career flying on a multi-purpose twin-engine aircraft L-410, designed for local airlines. He also flew a light twin-engine aircraft An-2. Colleagues say that Alexei was a real “Ryazan endurance” pilot. In 1999 he ended up in Voronezh, graduated from the St. Petersburg Academy of Civil Aviation. Mastered modern liners. He devoted his whole life to civil aviation. Was on constant business trips. As friends say, he tried to spend any free minute with his family.

Now the children of Alexei are already adults. Daughter – 27 years old, son – 17.

Seven years ago, Alexei Levshin, who was already working as an instructor, was noticed and invited to business aviation. On an Embraer aircraft, he managed to fly more than 3 thousand hours. I spent a month on a business trip, and then came home for two weeks.

“He flew in St. Petersburg, as far as I know, they found him there,” says Oleg Smirnov, a member of the Public Council of Rostransnadzor, the former Deputy Minister of Civil Aviation of the USSR, Honored Pilot. — Very experienced pilots, real professionals, are usually selected for business jets. Not easy people fly on these planes, they are very worried about their safety.

As for MNT-Aero, there are usually quite a few such companies. They form a kind of business community. They can’t do without aviation. Businessmen have a lot of flights, it is difficult for them to adapt to the schedule of regular flights.

But, importantly, such airlines are also required to build their flight operations in accordance with federal and international aviation regulations. And there are no exceptions and indulgences for them. This also applies to issues of anti-terror, and issues of security, and issues of crew training, and issues of observing work and rest for pilots so that they are in good shape. They are distinguished only by the presence, among other things, of their own security service.

The co-pilot of the crashed aircraft, Rustam Karimov, was 29 years old and originally from Perm. Friends say that since childhood he dreamed of becoming a pilot. Graduated from high school. Entered the Sasovo Civil Aviation Flight School. He lived in two cities: in Perm and St. Petersburg. He has worked for various airlines. He flew Airbus A320 and Embraer-135BJ business jets. At one time, during a pandemic, I lost my job.

Four years ago, as friends say, Rustam married the beautiful Anastasia. The young people were very happy. A few days ago they celebrated their wedding anniversary.

In the company “MNT-Aero”, which owned the crashed plane, Rustam got a job only three months ago.

Flight attendant Kristina Raspopova-Yadrevskaya was 38 years old. At one time, their family lived in Kazakhstan. Her friends share that after school the girl went to conquer Moscow, graduated from the school of flight attendants, knew English flawlessly. Her younger brother Eugene went to study in Chelyabinsk, graduated from the Faculty of Law. At one time he worked as an investigator, now he is the deputy prosecutor of the city of Yemanzhelinsk, Chelyabinsk region.

Colleagues say that they did not see their sister often, but they were constantly in touch.

At one time, Christina lived in Yekaterinburg and Moscow, then she moved to St. Petersburg. She worked as a stewardess on business jets at the MNT-Aero company on a contract basis. Friends say that the girl had a very strong character.

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