PARTICIPANTS OF PUBLIC DISCUSSION BRING FORWARD THEIR VERSIONS OF CRASH OF A-320 PLANE

Noyan Tapan
Oct 26 2006

YEREVAN, OCTOBER 26, NOYAN TAPAN. "I have a reliable information
that before the A-320 plane took off, a brawl took place among
the passengers of the plane in the VIP hall, at that the conflict
was not settled." Vladimir Poghosian, first class pilot who worked
in civil aviation more than 20 years, declared at the October 26
public hearing dedicated to the reasons of the tragic crash of the
A-320 plane in the air above Sochi. The public hearing was organized
by the anti-criminal movement. In his words, the airport Security
Service, the Air Flights Inspection and other structures responsible
for flight security were not informed about the incident. Besides,
the examination of passengers’ luggage was formal. According to
the version brought forward by the pilot, judging by the conduct of
the crew and, in particular, by the decision to land in Sochi made
by it, despite of information about bad weather conditions, it can
be concluded that the crew was in a state when it was not able to
rightly analyse the situation: "I have information that the flight
proceeded in special conditions of psychological influence on the
crew," V.Poghosian declared. He did not exclude that the brawl that
started on the land continued in the air, with use of fire-arms. In
V.Poghosian’s words, the report that the plane disappeared from
the radars’ screens means that the plane exploded still in the air,
before falling into the sea. He also declared that there are no final
conclusions on the accident’s reasons yet, but any version has "the
right to live." RA National Assembly Deputy Aghasi Arshakian agreed
with him declaring that this tragedy was the logic end of the collapse
of the national aviation that begun as early as in 1992 and was
initiated by the former authorities and continued with the efforts of
the current power. In the MP’s words, for purpose of gaining profit,
the authorities specially led to bankruptcy the Armenian Airlines
state company. Garnik Margarian, Chairman of the Homeland and Honor
Party, said that one of the most spread versions of the accident is
the version about lack of fuel. Before the flight to Sochi A-320 had
left for Moscow from where it returned with full tanks. At that,
fuel is bought in Russia at a much lower price than the price of
fuel mentioned in the passenger tickets of Armavia airline. As
G.Margarian assured, in Yerevan, part of the fuel was poured out
for again filling the tanks in Sochi. "Thanks to such business,
the airline owner, Mikhail Baghdasarov became a multi-millionaire,"
G.Margarian declared. The participants of the discussion pointed to
necessity of an independent investigation.