Armenians hold first funerals for victims of plane crash that killed 113
By AVET DEMOURIAN
AP Worldstream; May 06, 2006
Armenians observed a moment of silence Saturday for the victims of
the Armenian airliner crash that killed all 113 people on board,
while experts were still seeking to determine why the plane crashed
into the Black Sea earlier this week.
Weeping relatives buried some of the victims in the Armenian capital
Saturday, and more funerals were expected Sunday. Most of the victims
were Armenians.
Relatives carried the coffin of 27-year-old flight attendant Lusine
Gevorkian out of her house in Yerevan, as musicians played traditional
Armenian mourning dirges on a duduk, a clarinet-like instrument.
“I was flying a lot alongside Lusine,” said her colleague Nune
Beglarian, 33. “She was happy and eager to smile, and she had plans
to change her life she failed to fulfill.”
Black-robed priests later held a mourning service in Yerevan’s St.
Grigor Cathedral and other churches across the Caucasus nation.
Only 53 bodies have been recovered from Wednesday’s crash, which
occurred about six kilometers (four miles) off the coast of the
southern Russian resort of Sochi. Of those, 42 had been identified by
Saturday, and authorities began collecting DNA samples from relatives
of the dead.
Hope dimmed that searchers would recover the remains of more than
half the people on board, and authorities struggled to pinpoint the
precise location of the Airbus A-320’s flight recorders under nearly
700 meters (2,300 feet) of water.
The plane plunged into the sea in the pre-dawn hours Wednesday in
heavy rain and poor visibility as it approached the airport in Adler,
about 20 kilometers (12 miles) south of Sochi, a city wedged between
the sea and soaring, snowcapped mountains.
It was not clear what caused the crash.
Some experts, like Dmitry Adbashian, the former head of Armenia’s
civil aviation authority and a veteran pilot, said bad weather,
a shortage of fuel and technical problems all could have contributed.
The plane had covered most of its route from Yerevan to Sochi when it
turned back after air controllers in Sochi said the weather there was
too bad for landing. It later flew to Sochi again after air traffic
controllers said the weather had improved.
Mikhail Bagdasarov, the owner of the Armavia company that owned the
aircraft, said an air traffic controller ordered the airliner’s crew
to make another run when it came too close. The plane was turning
back when it hit the water.
“The air traffic controller made a mistake that worsened the
situation,” Bagdasarov said in a statement, adding that other factors
might have contributed to the crash.
Adbashian told The Associated Press that pilots considered the airport
in Sochi to be among the hardest to land at across the former Soviet
Union.
“I frequently flew there,” Adbashian said. “Thunderstorms were very
frequent and the direction of wind changed sharply.”
Adbashian said the airport’s location makes it difficult for a plane
to pull back and start a new approach if something went wrong during
its first attempt to land.