Armenian jet crashes into Black Sea, 113 killed (Reuters) Updated: 2006-05-03 09:24
"She flew to Sochi to see her sisters, whom she hadn't seen for 15 years," he
said.
A spokesman for Russia's Emergencies Ministry said the plane had vanished
from radar screens at 2:15 a.m. (2215 GMT Tuesday) near Sochi, which lies close
to the Georgian border.
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An file photo
shows an Armavia Airbus A320 passenger airliner on the tarmac at Yerevan
airport. An Armenian airliner crashed into the Black Sea off the Russian
coast in heavy rain on May 3, and all 113 passengers and crew on board
were killed. [Reuters] |
| "At the moment, we have absolutely no evidence pointing to the possibility of
a terrorist act on the plane," Deputy General Prosecutor Nikolai Shepel told
Interfax news agency.
An Armavia official said the aircraft had initially been refused permission
to land because of torrential rain, but the airport officials changed their
minds.
The crash happened as the crew made a second approach.
"Our initial information is that the only cause was the weather, for example
poor visibility," said Gayane Davtsian, a spokeswoman for Armenia's state
aviation authority.
A day of mourning was declared in Armenia, a mountainous state of 3 million
people, many of whom have relatives in southern Russia. Television stations
cleared their schedules and were playing sombre music.
Airbus said it would be sending six specialists to help authorities with the
crash investigation.
Attempts to pin down the cause of the crash were hampered by rain and the
fact that most of the plane had sunk to the seabed. "The main parts of the plane
are located at a depth of around 400 metres (1,300 feet)," Beltsov said.
The Airbus A-320, a twin-engined aircraft that seats 150 passengers, entered
service in 1988.
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