Bereaved families to return home with water, sand from crash area
by Dmitry Nezdorovin

ITAR-TASS News Agency
May 6, 2006 Saturday 09:54 AM EST

SOCHI, May 6 — Russian Deputy Transport Minister Sergei Aristov has
recommended to relatives of people who died in the recent air crash
near Sochi to return home.

He promised that all documents concerning their loved ones would be
prepared and mailed to families.

The A-320 plane of Armenia’s company Armavia that was en route from
Yerevan to Russia’s sea resort of Sochi crashed into the Black Sea
during a landing approach in the night of May 3, killing all 113
people on the board.

No bodies could be found in the sea over the past 24 hours.

Fifty-three bodies have been recovered in search operations, 42 of
which have been identified.

“The work will be continued until a decision is made to wind up the
search operation because of its hopelessness,” Aristov said.

About 180 people are staying in Sochi since the news of the demise
of the plane came to them.

Their initial shock of realisation of the loss appears to have blunted,
but the smell of sedative medicines fills Sochi’s hotels where the
bereaved have been put up.

Armenia’s Ambassador to Russia Armen Sambatyan said that families
of the unfound dead would take home the seawater and sand from the
crash area.