RUSSIA LAUNCHES OPERATION TO RECOVER CRASHED PLANE’S FLIGHT RECORDERS FROM SEA FLOOR
Steve Gutterman

AP Worldstream
May 16, 2006

Russia launched an operation Tuesday to recover the flight recorders
from an Armenian passenger plane that crashed in the Black Sea,
sending a robotic device with a hydraulic arm to the sea floor in an
attempt to bring up the “black boxes.”

Authorities hope the recorders will help determine the cause of the
May 3 crash of the Armavia Airbus A-320, which plunged into the sea
in heavy rain and poor visibility as it approached the airport on
a flight from the Armenian capital, Yerevan, to the Russian resort
city of Sochi, killing all 113 people on board.

An official involved in the operation said the recovery device was
lowered from a ship and reached the sea floor, where the recorders
were believed to by lying about 5 meters (15 feet) apart at a depth of
just under 500 meters (1,640 feet), the ITAR-Tass news agency reported.

The RT-1000 apparatus has been used by geologists to lift natural
objects weighing up to 40 kilograms (88 pounds) from the sea floor,
but has not been used at such depths, ITAR-Tass quoted a Transport
Ministry official, Alexander Davydenko, as saying.

He said authorities believe the device can lift fragments of the plane
weighing up to 12 kilograms (26 pounds) and the flight recorders,
which weigh 7 kilograms (15 pounds), the report said. The operation
to pinpoint the boxes and lift them to the surface could take three
days, officials said.

Russian prosecutors dismissed the possibility of terrorism, and
officials pointed to the rough weather or pilot error as the likely
cause. But officials with Armavia have suggested that air traffic
controllers should at least share the blame.

The plane had covered most of its route from Yerevan to Sochi when it
turned back after air controllers in Sochi said the weather was too
rough for landing, but it headed for Sochi again after air traffic
controllers said the weather had improved.

Mikhail Bagdasarov, the owner of Armavia, said days after the crash
that a controller had “made a mistake that worsened the situation”
by ordering the crew to make another run when it came too close,
but that other factors may also have been involved. The plane was
turning back when it hit the water.

On Tuesday, Bagdasarov said that “the weather was bad, of course,
but not so bad that an A-320 could not land.”

Russia’s air force chief, however, was adamant that weather caused
the crash and said the plane should not have turned back toward
Sochi after the decision was made to return to Yerevan _ a decision
he seemed to blame on the crew.

“The whole reason is the weather,” Gen. Vladimir Mikhailov said in a
televised comment. “We’ll get these recorders, decode them, and this
will all be confirmed.”

“It is obvious that the pilots misread the (weather) conditions,”
RIA-Novosti quoted as saying.