NO AVAILABLE EQUIPMENT CAPABLE OF RECOVERING BLACK BOXES - MINISTER
RIA Novosti, Russia
May 4 2006
SOCHI, May 4 (RIA Novosti) - Russia's transportation minister said
Thursday the flight recorders from an airliner that crashed off
Russia's southern coast Wednesday with the loss of 113 people were
too deep in the sea to be recovered with available equipment.
The black boxes of the Armenian plane are at a depth of 680 meters
(2,230 feet), and there is no available equipment in southern Russia
that could recover them, Igor Levitin said.
On Thursday, French experts picked up a radio signal that could be
coming from the black boxes of the crashed plane. They said the signals
had been included in the design of the plane to make it easier to
identify the location of the flight recorders after a possible crash.
"Many fragments have been discovered where the signal was established,"
Levitin said. "We believe this is where the disaster happened."
The minister said a request would be sent to the Navy to find the
necessary equipment.
"There is an experimental model in the north of the country, and we
will try to deliver it to the operation site," he said. "It can work
at a depth of 500 meters [1,640 feet]."
He said the operation involved a Be-200 aircraft searching the coastal
line. Levitin added that recovery teams had reached Loo, a town 15
kilometers (9 miles) from the popular resort of Sochi and would now
move back to Adler, the airport servicing Sochi where the Airbus had
been trying to land when it crashed in poor weather.
Sergei Kudinov, the head of the southern regional center of the Russian
Emergency Situations Ministry, said international technologies would
be used to lift the black boxes from such a depth.
"We will employ international technologies, in particular, from France,
the U.S. or Norway," he said.
RIA Novosti, Russia
May 4 2006
SOCHI, May 4 (RIA Novosti) - Russia's transportation minister said
Thursday the flight recorders from an airliner that crashed off
Russia's southern coast Wednesday with the loss of 113 people were
too deep in the sea to be recovered with available equipment.
The black boxes of the Armenian plane are at a depth of 680 meters
(2,230 feet), and there is no available equipment in southern Russia
that could recover them, Igor Levitin said.
On Thursday, French experts picked up a radio signal that could be
coming from the black boxes of the crashed plane. They said the signals
had been included in the design of the plane to make it easier to
identify the location of the flight recorders after a possible crash.
"Many fragments have been discovered where the signal was established,"
Levitin said. "We believe this is where the disaster happened."
The minister said a request would be sent to the Navy to find the
necessary equipment.
"There is an experimental model in the north of the country, and we
will try to deliver it to the operation site," he said. "It can work
at a depth of 500 meters [1,640 feet]."
He said the operation involved a Be-200 aircraft searching the coastal
line. Levitin added that recovery teams had reached Loo, a town 15
kilometers (9 miles) from the popular resort of Sochi and would now
move back to Adler, the airport servicing Sochi where the Airbus had
been trying to land when it crashed in poor weather.
Sergei Kudinov, the head of the southern regional center of the Russian
Emergency Situations Ministry, said international technologies would
be used to lift the black boxes from such a depth.
"We will employ international technologies, in particular, from France,
the U.S. or Norway," he said.