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Sky Control (press release), UK
May 8 2006
Armenian Plane Crashes in South Russia With 113 on Board
This news was published on Monday, May 8th, 2006 and is archived
under Airlines.
An Armenian passenger plane crashed in stormy weather early Wednesday
off Russia's Black Sea coast as it was headed in for a landing,
killing all 113 people on board.
The Airbus A-320, which belonged to the Armenian airline Armavia,
disappeared from radar screens about four miles from shore and
crashed after making a turn toward the Adler airport near the
southern Russian city of Sochi, Emergency Situations Ministry
spokesman Viktor Beltsov said. Rescue officials in the ministry's
southern regional branch said all 113 people aboard the plane,
including six children, were killed.
Armavia officials said they believed the crash was due to the
weather, but Sergei Kubinov, regional head of the Emergency
Situations Ministry, said the age of the aircraft and technical
problems could have been involved. Investigators did not believe
terrorism was a factor. Relatives of those aboard the plane were
gathering at Yerevan airport, Armenia, for a charter flight to Sochi
on Wednesday morning.
The plane broke up on impact with the water, and wreckage was thrown
in a wide arc, Kubinov said. Salvage workers said the fuselage was
recovered at a depth of nearly 1,500 feet. Search and rescue teams
had pulled 18 bodies from the water, Kubinov said. None were wearing
life jackets, indicating they did not have sufficient warning to
prepare for an emergency landing.
Rough seas, driving rain and low visibility were hampering the
search, Russian news agencies reported. A deep-sea robot was to be
used to try to recover the plane's black box.
The plane disappeared from radar at about 2:15 a.m. local time during
a flight from Yerevan to Sochi, Beltsov said. He said the plane went
down while trying to make a repeat attempt at an emergency landing;
the Interfax news agency quoted the Russian air control agency as
saying that the plane's crew had not reported an emergency.
Andrei Agadzhanov, Armavia's deputy commercial director, said the
crew had communicated with Sochi ground controllers while the plane
was flying over the Georgian capital, Tbilisi. The ground controllers
reported stormy weather but told the crew the plane could still land,
he said.
Just before the landing, however, the ground controllers told the
plane's pilots to circle again before approaching the airport. Then
the plane crashed. Agadzhanov said that the airline's deputy general
director, Vyacheslav Yaralov, was aboard. He said the crew was
experienced and that the bad weather was `certainly' the cause.
http://www.skycontrol.net/airlines/armeni an-plane-crashes-in-south-russia-with-113-on-board /
May 8 2006
Armenian Plane Crashes in South Russia With 113 on Board
This news was published on Monday, May 8th, 2006 and is archived
under Airlines.
An Armenian passenger plane crashed in stormy weather early Wednesday
off Russia's Black Sea coast as it was headed in for a landing,
killing all 113 people on board.
The Airbus A-320, which belonged to the Armenian airline Armavia,
disappeared from radar screens about four miles from shore and
crashed after making a turn toward the Adler airport near the
southern Russian city of Sochi, Emergency Situations Ministry
spokesman Viktor Beltsov said. Rescue officials in the ministry's
southern regional branch said all 113 people aboard the plane,
including six children, were killed.
Armavia officials said they believed the crash was due to the
weather, but Sergei Kubinov, regional head of the Emergency
Situations Ministry, said the age of the aircraft and technical
problems could have been involved. Investigators did not believe
terrorism was a factor. Relatives of those aboard the plane were
gathering at Yerevan airport, Armenia, for a charter flight to Sochi
on Wednesday morning.
The plane broke up on impact with the water, and wreckage was thrown
in a wide arc, Kubinov said. Salvage workers said the fuselage was
recovered at a depth of nearly 1,500 feet. Search and rescue teams
had pulled 18 bodies from the water, Kubinov said. None were wearing
life jackets, indicating they did not have sufficient warning to
prepare for an emergency landing.
Rough seas, driving rain and low visibility were hampering the
search, Russian news agencies reported. A deep-sea robot was to be
used to try to recover the plane's black box.
The plane disappeared from radar at about 2:15 a.m. local time during
a flight from Yerevan to Sochi, Beltsov said. He said the plane went
down while trying to make a repeat attempt at an emergency landing;
the Interfax news agency quoted the Russian air control agency as
saying that the plane's crew had not reported an emergency.
Andrei Agadzhanov, Armavia's deputy commercial director, said the
crew had communicated with Sochi ground controllers while the plane
was flying over the Georgian capital, Tbilisi. The ground controllers
reported stormy weather but told the crew the plane could still land,
he said.
Just before the landing, however, the ground controllers told the
plane's pilots to circle again before approaching the airport. Then
the plane crashed. Agadzhanov said that the airline's deputy general
director, Vyacheslav Yaralov, was aboard. He said the crew was
experienced and that the bad weather was `certainly' the cause.
http://www.skycontrol.net/airlines/armeni an-plane-crashes-in-south-russia-with-113-on-board /