Armenian Plane Crash Update
Global Voices Online has a round up of blogs dealing with yesterday’s crash of an Armavia A-320 as it attempted to land in Sochi. Ironic that when Armenia makes headline news around the world it has to be something like this.
Indeed, typical questions being asked of me last night by a few people were things like why wasn’t I there taking photographs and reports. Others spoke about their own experiences of flying Armavia, while most people carried on with their lives regardless.
Anyway, my response was that I’m not interested in covering the story, especially when there are already a zillion reports and images flying through the wires, like this one from the BBC.
So far, 47 bodies of the 113 aboard the Armavia A320 jet have been retrieved from choppy sea waters.
The cause of the crash is not known but officials say the plane may have been brought down by bad weather as it tried to land in the Russian resort of Sochi.
Passengers’ relatives have gathered in the city to begin identifying the dead.
Photos of the bodies recovered so far have been posted in a hotel in Sochi where the relatives are staying.
Anyway, RFE/RL says that Armavia intends to continue flying, although a friend due to fly back to Damascus last night had her flight cancelled at the last moment. In other news, the Defense Minister Serzh Sarkisyan has been despatched to Sochi to clarify “the causes and cricumstances” of the crash.
I’m sorry, why the Defense Minister? Maybe because Mika Armenia was reported to last year control Armavia, and Mika Baghdasarov is considered inseparable from Serzh Sarkisyan?
Regardless, President Kocharian has declared Friday and Saturday as national days of mourning. To be honest, the crash was indeed a tragedy, but to make it into a national tragedy? Anyway, there’s already a Wiki page on yesterday’s tragic accident here.
Hello there,
here is something that might interest you:
http://sarena.xter.net/~silver/a320.mp3
Part of the Armenian captain conversation with the georgian ATC.
Comment by Areg — May 5, 2006 @ 8:54 am
Excuse me for being curt but the latest scenario is that there were birds on the runway that caused the plane to crash into the Black Sea. Airport personnel worried that they were migratory birds carrying the bird flu.
ANOTHER HYPOTHESIS
A1 Plus
05 May, 2006
Every minute there are new hypotheses about the A-320 crash. We learned from the workers of the airport (who refused to introduce themselves) that as a rule the airplanes are refueled in Sochi as fuel is twice as expensive in Armenia as in Sochi (400 AMD to 200). The airplanes were tanked wit as much fuel as would suffice to fly to Sochi. This was during one flight Yerevan-Sochi-Yerevan the aviation company saved about 4000 USD.
By the way, one of our colleagues from “Nojjan Tapan” told us about an incident which happened to him while flying to Moscow by “Armavia”. While on board the passengers learned that the flight is being postponed for two hours, and then for another hour. Finally it turned out that the reason was the unfavorable weather in the Minvody airport, whereas according to the tickets the plane was not supposed to land there. What was the reason?
Under the pressure of the angry passengers the stewardesses informed them that the airplane was to be refueled in Minvody (perhaps fuel is cheaper there). Nevertheless, after the complaints of the passengers the plane was refueled in the Yerevan airport and reached Moscow with a delay of five hours.
Comment by Darwin Jamgochian — May 6, 2006 @ 9:43 pm