Taipei Times, Taiwan
May 6 2006

Russia, Armenians mourn crash victims, raise bodies

AP , SOCHI, RUSSIA
Saturday, May 06, 2006,Page 6

Advertising Forty-one of the 53 bodies pulled from the Black Sea after
an Armenian airliner crash have been identified, Russian Transport
Minister Igor Levitin said yesterday, as Russia and Armenia observed
a day of mourning for the 113 victims of the disaster. A special
diving vehicle was sent to the site of the crash, about 6km off the
southern Russian resort of Sochi, to try to pinpoint the remains of
the plane’s fuselage on the sea floor.

Levitin said authorities were searching both in Russia and abroad
for equipment to raise the fuselage, where some bodies are thought
to be trapped.

“I want to say, for us the most important thing now is raising the
bodies, because we understand that for the victims’ relatives not
raising the bodies or fragments would be an even bigger tragedy,”
Levitin told reporters.

He had said on Thursday that searchers had located a large part of the
plane’s fuselage that was emitting a radio signal believed to be from
a flight recorder, and he later said a signal from the plane’s other
“black box” had been detected.