RFE/RL reported yesterday that Armavia has rejected Russian claims that the crash of one its planes earlier this year was due to pilot error. Almost everybody I’ve spoken to in Armenia about the findings of a special commission to investigate the crash also feel the same. They’re not convinced that the full story has come out.

Russia’s Transport Minister Igor Levitin said on Wednesday that the Airbus A-320 plunged into the Black Sea as it approached the Russian resort city of Sochi because of a “human factor,” effectively laying the blame on its crew. He said this is the conclusion drawn by a Russian-led inquiry into the worst air disaster in Armenia’s history.

A special commission formed by the Interstate Aviation Committee of the Commonwealth of Independent States also took part in the inquiry. The Russian head of the body, Tatyana Anodina, endorsed its findings, saying that the A-320’s main pilot “did not ensure control of the plane as far as angle and altitude were concerned.”

Senior Armavia executives strongly disagreed with this, saying that other factors such as conflicting instructions reportedly given to the A-320 crew by Russian traffic controllers and stormy weather were also at play. Armavia’s Russian-Armenian owner, Mikhail Baghdasarian, insisted earlier that the plane would have safely landed at Sochi airport had it not received a last-minute order to veer away from the runway and make a second approach.

The local Armenian media, however, isn’t so convinced with Russian claims either.

“Azg” says the Russian authorities’ conclusions regarding the causes of the Armavia plane crash raise more questions than answers. The paper says their claims that the plane went down because of a pilot error bore out the “most pessimistic forecasts” made in Armenia. “Even the worst pessimists hoped that that ‘human factor’ [cited by Russian investigators] also includes a mistake committed by a traffic controller from Sochi airport. But what we got is something which should not have happened because the [CIS] Interstate Aviation Committee had all necessary information not to arrive at such a conclusion, regardless of the interests of particular countries.”

“As we predicted, it is the dead pilots that were declared guilty,” “Aravot” notes grimly. “In any other case, it is living individuals who would bear responsibility.”

“Armenian pilots could not have suffered a crash in such a simple situation,” Dmitry Atbashian, a prominent retired pilot, tells “Hayots Ashkhar.” Atbashian argues that Sochi airport lacks the necessary equipment to forecast bad and dangerous weather. Russian aviation rules prohibit flights of civilian aircraft in such conditions. Atbashian believes that the doomed Airbus A-320 crashed because of heavy rain and high winds.

However, one government-controlled paper is:

But “Hayastani Hanrapetutyun” tries to rationalize the findings of the Russian authorities, saying that they “could not satisfy all parties and especially relatives of the dead.” “Realism requires that one put emotions aside, which is impossible in this case,” says the government paper. It argues that the Russian conclusions are based on the analysis of data from the plane’s black boxes and other “facts.”

Meanwhile, RFE/RL reported today on Yerevan’s official response to the findings of the enquiry on the crash that left 113 people dead and was the worst airplane disaster in Armenia’s history.

The Armenian government indicated on Friday that it has essentially accepted Russian investigators’ conclusion that an Armenian airliner crashed in southern Russia and killed all 113 people aboard on May 3 due to pilot error.

Artyom Movsisian, head of the government’s Civil Aviation Department, said although the “human factor” apparently played a role in the disaster, Yerevan believes that there are still some key unanswered questions about its causes.

[…]

According to Movsisian, a 74-page report issued by the ICA does not explain what exactly caused the passenger jet to plunge into the Black Sea in stormy weather. He said the deciphering of its black box flight recorders revealed that the plane belonging to Armenia’s Armavia airline flew in a normal regime until suddenly disappearing from Russian radar screens.

“Whether the pilot had health problems, a traffic controller made him nervous or he lost orientation is not clear,” the official told a news conference. “We are talking about 17-20 seconds before the accident when the pilot’s actions left the plane in an unstable state.”

Armavia and most Armenian aviation specialists have rejected the findings of the Russian-led inquiry, saying that other factors such as conflicting instructions reportedly given to the A-320 crew by Russian traffic controllers and bad weather were instrumental in the disaster. Movsisian confirmed in this regard that the doomed plane’s chief pilot cursed one of the controllers who was subsequently placed under investigation.

[…]

Movsisian similarly dismissed as “inappropriate” allegations that the Russian government pressured the investigators into shifting responsibility for the massive loss of life from Sochi traffic controllers to the dead pilots. “Political decisions are made only in the political field,” he said.

Armenia Now also has more here.