AEROBUS CONSORTIUM WILL HELP INVESTIGATE SOCHI AIR ACCIDENT

ITAR-TASS, Russia
May 3 2006

PARIS, May 3 (Itar-Tass) – Experts of the Bureau for the Investigations
of Air Accidents of the Chief Civil Aviation Board of France will
render all the necessary assistance to Russia and Armenia in their
effort to investigate the reasons of the tragic crash of an A-320
airliner near Sochi, Anne Galabert, an official of the Consortium
Press Service informed Itar-Tass on Wednesday from the company’s HQ
in Toulouse. Our company will dispatch to the disaster spot a 6-man
team of experts to render all the necessary technical assistance,
she stated.

“The Airbus Consortium never investigates the reasons and circumstances
of air accidents. This is within the competence of the Bureau for the
Investigation of Air Accidents, which was set up for these purposes,”
Galabert explained. “We are always ready to give a helping hand and
to render technical assistance, to meet the Armenian and Russian
authorities halfway, and to answer all the questions they wish
to know. This is precisely why a team of our experts is going to
Sochi,” she added. The team of specialists of the Aerobus Consortium,
where the fateful A-320 liner was built, will be included in the
international commission that is to carry out the inquest. “Aerobus
is ready to provide information, linked with the disaster,” Press
Service officials noted. “However, the company does not deem it right
to discuss the reasons of the accident, since it is the duty of the
aviation authorities concerned to investigate the case,” they added.

The two-engine narrow-fuselage A-320 liner is designed to carry 150
passengers in the typical two-class variation. This type of airbuses,
which were launched into service in 1988, have won the reputation
of comfortable and dependable airliners. Today, they number 2,750 on
the international airlines and are being used by 175 air companies.

The airliner, which crashed near Sochi, had effected 14,400 flights
since 1995 with a total duration of more than 28,200 flight hours.