Crew responsible for Armenian A320 crash near Sochi – minister (Part 2)
Interfax News Agency
Russia & CIS Military Newswire
July 26, 2006 Wednesday 2:10 PM MSK
MOSCOW July 26
The crash of an Airbus A320 passenger jet belonging to the Armavia
airline near Sochi on May 3 happened due to the fault of the crew,
Transportation Minister and head of an ad hoc government commission
investigating the crash Igor Levitin said at a press conference in
Moscow on Wednesday.
"The human factor played its role in difficult weather conditions,"
Levitin said.
Tatyana Anodina, the head of the Interstate Aviation Committee, a CIS
organization investigating air incidents, told journalists that "the
plane was landing on autopilot and strictly following the glide slope
in a landing configuration, when it received a report from air traffic
control that the cloud base was lowering. The plane stopped descending
at a speed of around 340 meters, and started a right climbing turn.
While performing this turn, the captain switched the autopilot off
and made the plane to descend."
"These actions by the captain were not properly controlled by the
second pilot, and the crew’s following actions were uncoordinated
and inadequate to roll the plane out," Anodina said.
As for suggestions that the crash could have been caused by a
mechanical fault, the commission’s conclusion reads, "There were no
malfunctions in the aircraft’s engines and systems, and the plane
normally responded to both the autopilot’s commands and the crew’s
actions. There was enough fuel on board to safely complete the flight."
The A320 crash near Sochi at 2:13 a.m. Moscow time on May 3 (2213
GMT on May 2) killed 105 passengers and eight crewmembers.