ZURICH, Nov 8 (Reuters) - A Swiss court on Thursday upheld a ruling to cut the sentence of a Russian man convicted of killing an air traffic controller linked to the death of his wife and children in a 2002 mid-air collision, Swiss media reported.

They said the ruling paves the way for the release of 51-year-old Vitaly Kaloyev, possibly within days, after his sentence was cut to five years and three months from eight years. Kaloyev was expected to be freed after he had served two thirds of his new sentence.

Kaloyev stabbed to death air traffic controller Peter Nielsen, a Skyguide employee on duty the night of the collision between a cargo plane and a Russian charter transporting mostly Russian children on holiday that killed 71 people.

A Swiss court later found four air traffic control managers guilty of manslaughter over the accident, gave three of them 12-month suspended sentence each and fined the fourth. Four other employees were acquitted.

Defendants in the trial mainly blamed Nielsen -- who was alone on duty on the night of the accident -- for poorly handling the events leading up to the crash in Swiss-controlled air space over the German town of Ueberlingen.

Kaloyev had initially been sentenced to eight years in jail for the killing, but the split verdict now said he could not be held accountable for his action.

One of the judges told the media that Kaloyev did not come to Switzerland intending to kill Nielsen but had lost control of himself when the man refused to offer apologies after Kaloyev had shown him pictures of his children. (Reporting by Douwe Miedema, editing by Sami Aboudi)

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