ADLER, Russia: Divers searched storm-churned waters off Russia's Black Sea
coast yesterday for the remains of 113 people killed when an Armenian passenger
airliner crashed in rough weather as it was heading for a landing, emergency
officials said.
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| An
Armenian Airlines aircraft carrying about 100 people on a flight from
Yerevan to the Black Sea resort of Sochi has disappeared from radar
screens, Itar-Tass news agency, monitored by the BBC, said on Wednesday.
[Reuters] |
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It
was the worst air disaster in Armenia's recent history.
President Hu Jintao yesterday sent a condolence message to his Armenian
counterpart Robert Kocharian expressing sympathy to the victims and their family
members.
Armenian airline officials said they believed the crash was due to stormy
weather, and Russian Emergency Situations Ministry spokesman Viktor Beltsov said
weather was considered the likeliest cause. He said that the clouds were as low
as 100 metres at the time of the crash.
A spokeswoman for the Prosecutor General's office, Natalia Vishnyakova, said
there was no indication of terrorism.
The Airbus A-320, which belonged to the Armenian airline Armavia, disappeared
from radar screens about 6 kilometers from the shore and crashed after making a
turn and heading towards the Adler airport near the Russian resort of Sochi,
Beltsov said.
Officials in the emergency ministry's southern regional branch said the 105
passengers and eight crew members aboard the plane flying from the Armenian
capital Yerevan, including six children, were all killed.
Gurgen Seroboyan, whose 23-year-old fiancee Lucenie Gevorkian was an
attendant on the flight, wept as he waited at Yerevan airport for a charter
flight that was to take relatives of the crash victims to Adler.
Samvel Oganesian said his 23-year-old son Vram and his friend Hamlet Abgarian
had been heading to Sochi for a vacation.
"Why did he go?" Oganesian asked in anguish, over and over again.
About 100 tearful relatives kept up an anguished vigil in a waiting hall of
the Adler airport. One man became hysterical and had to be taken away by
ambulance.
Sobbing women held handkerchiefs to their mouths, while men sat silently,
their heads in their hands.