MOSCOW — At the country house of the Russian prime minister on Monday, the head of the French oil company Total, Christophe de Margerie, criticized Western sanctions against Russia, again demonstrating his strong personality in the face of the global sanctions war.

A few hours later, as his private jet tried to take off in midnight fog for the flight back to Paris, Mr. de Margerie, 63, the chief executive of the world’s fourth-biggest oil company and one of France’s biggest private employers, died in a crash after his aircraft hit a snowplow.

As Total expressed shock on Tuesday at his death, the oil industry in its first drafts of history might record him as a shuttle diplomat, one whose mission was overcoming East-West tensions in the name of getting on with the business of doing business.