113 lost in Armenian plane crash in the Black Sea

113 die as Armenian jet goes down in Black Sea
The Associated Press

THURSDAY, MAY 4, 2006


SOCHI, Russia Boats laden with dead bodies and twisted
metal sailed into the palm-fringed harbor of this Russian
resort on Wednesday, carrying the remains of some of the
113 people who died when an Armenian airliner crashed into
the Black Sea.

The plane went down about 2:15 a.m. in heavy rain and poor
visibility as it was approaching the airport in Adler,
about 20 kilometers, or 12 miles, south of this city
wedged between the sea and snowcapped mountains.

The cause of the crash was not immediately known, and
divers were attempting to retrieve the Airbus A-320's
recorders from the crash site, about six kilometers
offshore.

A spokeswoman for the prosecutor general's office,
Nataliya Vishnyakova, dismissed the possibility of
terrorism, and other officials pointed to the rough
weather or pilot error as the likely cause.

Rescue boats battled stiff winds and heavy seas to try to
retrieve bodies and fragments of the plane, which was
leased by Armavia, Armenia's largest airline. By late
afternoon, 46 bodies had been brought into the port and
taken to the city's two morgues for identification.

Outside one of the morgues, about 100 people stood grimly,
rushing forward every time a truck carrying remains pulled
up to the gates.

At Yerevan's Zvarnots Airport, from which the doomed plane
had taken off, other relatives were in agony.

"I've lost my sweetheart, my son!" Anait Bagusian wailed
as doctors hovered nearby because she had fainted several
times.

Samvel Oganesian said his 23-year- old son, Vram, and a
friend, Hamlet Abgarian, had been heading to Sochi on a
vacation. "Why did he go?" Oganesian asked over and over
again.

Twenty-five boats, many carrying divers, were involved in
the search, and a deep-sea robot was to be used to try to
recover the plane's recorders, the Emergency Situations
Ministry said.

But Rudolf Teymurazov of the Russian Intergovernmental
Aviation Committee expressed doubt the recorders could be
found because water at the crash site is as deep as two
kilometers.

The aircraft broke up on impact, and passengers' personal
belongings and plane fragments were found scattered over
an area extending 1.5 kilometers from the crash site.

A spokesman for the Emergency Situations Ministry, Viktor
Beltsov, said that the plane had disappeared from radar
screens while making a repeat attempt at an emergency
landing.

But Interfax quoted the Russian air control agency as
saying that the plane's crew had not declared any
emergency prior to the crash.