ARMENIAN EX-INTERIOR MINISTER AMONG DEAD AT A-320 CRASH

Regnum, Russia
May 3 2006

Former Armenian Interior Minister (1988-90), former head of the
Armenian National Security Committee (1990-92) Usik Arutyunyan is
reported to among victims of the A-320 crash near Sochi, a REGNUM
correspondent is told by spokesman for the Armenian National Security
Service Artsvin Bagramyan.

Among dead son of former head of the Armenian National Security
Service Karlos Petrosyan – Aram Petrosyan. It is worth mentioning,
Usik Arutyunyan was Executive Director at the Zakneftegazstroy-Prometey
Company.

As REGNUM earlier reported, former Director General of the
Armenian Airlines Company Vyacheslav Yaralov, who was flying to his
mother-in-law’s funeral with his spouse, is also reported dead.

AIRBUS EXPERTS DEPART FROM FRANCE TO SOCHI

Regnum, Russia
May 3 2006

Airbus experts will participate in investigating the aircraft crash
in Krasnodar Region. The A-320 plane that crashed near Sochi was
produced by the Airbus Company, report Vesti.ru.

The A-320 airbus was delivered to Armenia in 2004 and has had about
14,000 flights. A crash of a plane of the A-320 type was the first
one in Russia. However, in the world planes of this type have had
several crashes in recent years.

The first group of relatives of the A-320 passengers, who were flying
from Yerevan to Sochi, has started identification of the victims.

According to Head of the Russian Transport Ministry Igor levitin,
the relatives were brought to Sochi Hospital No 4 for identification
procedure. 46 bodies of the ill-fated flight passengers have been
taken out from the Black Sea.

ANALYSIS: IS THE AIRBUS A320 TOO HI-TECH TO HANDLE?
>From Charles Bremner in Paris

The Times, UK
May 3 2006

Severe weather was blamed by Russian officials as the likely cause of
the Armenian airliner crash off Sochi and an air traffic controller
is under investigation.

Such storms create the violent wind shifts and bad visibility that
have led many an airliner, both old and modern, to disaster on the
approach to landing.

However the crash may revive questions about the high-technology
design of the Airbus A320 and the crew’s ability to handle it.

The short-to-medium haul A320 was the first all electronic
“fly-by-wire” airliner. With over 2,700 produced since 1988, it has
proved one of the world’s safest airliners. Before the Sochi disaster,
11 fatal A320 accidents had killed 327 people.

However four fatal crashes in the first five years of the A320 prompted
concern that its Flight Management System (FMS) was so sophisticated
that it could lead pilots into danger.

On Tuesday, a court in France began hearing criminal charges against
Airbus and transport officials over the 1992 crash of an Air Inter
(now Air France) A320 on the approach to Strasbourg, killing 87. The
crew was officially blamed with mis-entering data into the FMS but
relatives of victims are partly blaming its crew interface, which
was later modified by Airbus.

In 1993 the A320 design was blamed for the late deployment of the
brakes on a Lufthansa A320 when it ran off the runway in Warsaw,
killing two.

Since the early 1990s there has been no common thread to incidents
with A320s or the larger Airbus family, which in recent years has
overtaken Boeing as the biggest selling make. Boeing’s airliners
since the 777 have used fly-by-wire technology but it is not quite
as automated as Airbus.

In 2000, pilot error was blamed for an approach-to-landing disaster
involving a Gulf Air A320 which killed 143 off Bahrain. That crash
occurred in good night-time visibility, but it otherwise resembled
yesterday’s accident because the crew were turning back over water
after a first missed approach when they came to grief.

The relatively inexperienced crew lost their bearings, apparently
misunderstood information that they were receiving from the FMS and
flew the airliner into the sea. Some aviation experts at the time
questioned the role of the automated system.

ANOTHER PLANE OF EMERGENCIES MIN LEAVES FOR SITE OF A-320 CRASH

ITAR-TASS, Russia
May 3 2006

MOSCOW, May 3 (Itar-Tass) – Russian Emergencies Ministry’s Yak-42
plane with psychologists and the commission of investigators from the
prosecutor-general’s office has left for Sochi, where an A-320 plane of
Armenia’s Armavia air carrier crashed in the small hours of Wednesday.

The plane will also deliver side-looking sonar system C-3000, which
allows to detect submerged objects at the distance up to three
kilometers.

The wreck of the A-320 plane was found on the seabed at a depth of
500-600 meters, the deputy director of the Emergencies Ministry’s
on-line control department, Andrei Legoshin, said.

“At such depths divers will be unable to work and special equipment –
minisubmarines and robots – are necessary,” he said.

Soon after the crash, a group of the Emergencies Ministry’s rescuers,
including divers, left for the site of the accident.

500 RESCUERS JOIN RECOVERY EFFORTS AFTER BLACK SEA PLANE CRASH

RIA Novosti, Russia
May 3 2006

MOSCOW, May 3 (RIA Novosti) – About 500 rescuers have joined an
operation to recover bodies from the Black Sea after an Armenian
airliner crashed near the Russian coast early on Wednesday, emergency
services said.

A total of 113 passengers and crew were killed when an Airbus A-320
belonging to Armenia’s Armavia Airlines flying from the capital,
Yerevan, crashed about six kilometers from the coast en route to an
airport in Adler, which services the resort of Sochi.

Yevgeny Serebryakov, a deputy minister of the Russian Emergency
Situations Ministry, said, “The rescue operation is continuing despite
poor weather.”

The ministry reported earlier that it had recovered 25 bodies.

Serebryakov added that the ministry also sent a group of psychologists
to support passengers’ relatives who had gathered at the airport
in Adler.

The recovery operation involves about 20 boats and a Be-200 amphibious
aircraft, the ministry said earlier, adding that two more Be-200s
would fly to the scene if necessary.

TRIAL OF AZERBAIJANI ARMY OFFICER RAMIL SAFAROV TAKES PLACE TODAY

Azeri Press Agency, Azerbaijan
May 3 2006

Trial on claim raised by jailers against Azerbaijani Army Officer
Ramil Safarov who is accused of murder of Armenian officer Gurgen
Markaryan in Hungary, has taken place today.

Azerbaijani embassy in Hungary told APA that witnesses gave testimony
on in the trial presided by Judge Tot Dyendver. The trial is
continuing now.

No decision is expected to be made in the trial.

Azerbaijani embassy representatives and students attend the trial.

Ramil safarov’s lawyer is Hungarian Klara Fiser.

Jailers demanded Ramil Safarov to give the phone card on June 19,
2004. Safarov don’t know Hungarian language and he therefore didn’t
understand the jailers and this misunderstanding caused incident
among them. 8 police tied Safarov’s arms and exercised force.

safarov’s lawyers appealed to the court but the court didn’t meet
the appeal through lack of evidences. Then the jailers appealed to
the court claiming Safarov put up resistance to jailers.

Safarov’s lawyer Adil Ismayilov told APA that Defense Ministry assumed
all expenditures for defense of Safarov.

SYRIA CONDOLES ARMENIA OVER PLANE CRASH

SANA – Syrian Arab News Agency, Syria
May 3 2006

DAMASCUS, (SANA) – President Bashar al-Assad sent on Wednesday a
cable of condolences to his Armenian counterpart Robert Kocharian
over crash of an Armenian airplane and the killing of all passengers.

” On behalf of the Syrian people and me I express to you and to the
Armenian friendly people my heartfelt condolences wishing God would
avert the friendly people of Armenian ay trouble,’ the President said
in his cable. An Armenian passenger plane crashed in stormy weather
Wednesday off Russia’s Black sea coast while readying to land,
killing all 113 people on board most of them Armenians.

MEDIATORS TO TABLE NEW GARABAGH PROPOSALS

Assa-Irada, Azerbaijan
May 3 2006

Baku, May 2, AssA-Irada
The OSCE mediators brokering settlement to the Armenia-Azerbaijan
Upper (Nagorno) Garabagh conflict started their talks in Moscow on
Tuesday. The course of peace talks and the date for the intermediaries’
next visit to the region is being considered.

The Minsk Group co-chairs from Russia, France and the United States,
who will further pay separate visits to the region, are expected to
discuss new proposals on the conflict resolution. The discussions
follow the latest unsuccessful round of talks between the two
countries’ leaders in Rambouillet, France in February.

“The Moscow meeting is underway behind closed doors and no
representatives of the two sides are represented in the talks.

Official Baku will be informed of the details of the meeting during
the co-chairs’ next visit to the region,” the Azeri Foreign Ministry
spokesman Tahir Taghizada said.

The OSCE chairman’s special envoy Andzhei Kaspshik is attending the
discussions, according to the Russian co-chairman of the OSCE Minsk
Group Yuri Merzlyakov.

AZERI MP CRITICIZES MEDIATING OSCE GROUP

Assa-Irada, Azerbaijan
May 3 2006

Baku, May 2, AssA-Irada
An Azeri parliament member has questioned the credibility of the OSCE
Minsk Group (MG) brokering settlement to the Armenia-Azerbaijan Upper
(Nagorno) Garabagh conflict.

Shahlar Asgarov said there are ample grounds for this conclusion.

“Who can say that the MG co-chairs have put forth any goodwill
proposals so far?” he queried.

The MP said he had been closely following the activity of the group
and arrived at a conclusion that it was established not to facilitate,
but on the contrary, to impede the peace process.

“The co-chairing countries [Russia, France and the United States]
assist either party when its position weakens, which prolongs the
[Armenian] occupation. Our society should understand this clearly,”
Asgarov said.

ARMAVIA AIR COMPANY SETS UP COMMISSION FOR FINDING OUT CAUSES OF ITS AIRCRAFT CRASH NEAR SOCHI

ARKA News Agency, Armenia
May 3 2006

YEREVAN, May 3. /ARKA/. Armavia Air Company is already set up a
commission for finding out causes of its aircraft crash near Sochi,
Russia. Armavia press service told ARKA News Agency that aircraft
A-320 with 913 on board plummeted into Black Sea Tuesday night while
en route from Yerevan to Sochi. It fell down when trying to land in
Adler airport.

Armavia’s official says the plane was denied landing because of bad
weather. The crew decided to land in Tbilisi, then they was told by
Adler airport flying control ground service that weather has already
improved. “The airplane headed to Sochi, but weather conditions there
remained bad. At the very moment of the second attempt to land,
the plane disappeared from radars screens”, the company’s press
service says.

Armavia spokesman said that the jet was in good technical condition.

Of 113 aboard 105 were passengers and 8 crew members. 6 children and
36 women were among the passengers.

Armenian Civil Aviation General Office set up a commission for
dealing with the accident. The commission made up of aviation and
flight security specialists has already flew to Sochi to take part
in the investigation launched by Russian side.

All the 113 on board are reportedly killed in the crash.

Sochi Prosecutor Office instigated a case into the accident on the
Russian Federation Penal Code count on violation of flight security
rules that resulted in human toll.

Armavia Air Company started functioning on December 12, 1996. Mikhail
Baghdasarov, MIKA Armenia Trading President, became the owner of 100%
shares of Armavia in June 2005.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress