Ukraine's Supreme Economic Court has turned down an appeal from Russia's Siberia Airlines (S7) against previous Ukrainian court rulings that imposed compensation payments of $15.5 million on it because of the 2001 crash of a Tupolev Tu-154 airliner over Ukraine, a representative of one of the litigants told Interfax-Ukraine.

Tuesday's ruling of the Supreme Economic Court upheld rulings by the Kyiv Economic Court and Kyiv Economic Court of Appeals.

The crash of the Tu-154 passenger plane owned by S7 Airlines happened in the Black Sea on October 4, 2001, when a Ukrainian S-200 missile hit it during Ukrainian air defense maneuvers in Crimea. Seventy-eight people were killed as a result of the accident, of which 66 were passengers (citizens of Israel) and 12 were crewmembers.

In 2003-2005, the Ukrainian government paid $15.6 million in compensation to the relatives of those who died. In 2004 the Siberia air company brought a suit at Kyiv's Economic Court against the Defense Ministry of Ukraine and State Treasury Service of Ukraine seeking compensation for damages due to the crash of the Tu-154.

According to the conclusions of an examination held in 2008-2010 by the Kyiv Institute of Scientific Research and Forensic Examination, the Tu-154 couldn't have been brought down by the Ukrainian anti-aircraft missile in 2001.

As the defenders of the plaintiff reported, the members of the expert commission of Kyiv Institute of Scientific Research and Forensic Examination did not have experience in investigating plane crashes, three of them were not forensic experts, but employees of Kharkiv Aviation University, which is under the control of the Defense Ministry.

The plaintiff sought to involve in the consideration of the case experts from the Interstate Aviation Commission as a third party, who conducted an investigation and determined a hit by a missile. The airlines also submitted a lot of applications for important data from the General Prosecutor's Office and the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, as well as by agencies of the Russian Federation, research institutes, manufacturers of aircraft and the missile involved in the case, etc.

All of the claims were rejected by the court in September 2011.

On October 10, 2011, the airlines appealed to the Kyiv Economic Court of Appeals against the decision taken by the economic court. On May 28, 2012, the appeals court also ruled against the Russian airline's claim. After that, the company filed a cassation appeal at the Higher Economic Court of Ukraine.