ARMENIAN CIVIL AVIATION AGENCY GIVES DETAILS OF A-320 AIRBUS CRASH NEAR SOCHI
Regnum, Russia
May 3 2006
105 passengers and 8 crew members, including 77 Armenian citizens and
28 Russian citizens, were aboard the A-320 plane belonging to Armavia
that crashed in the Black Sea, Head of the Armenian Civil Aviation
Department Artyom Movsisyan has announce while speaking on May 3 after
an extraordinary session with the Armenian president on the crash.
Movsisyan is quoted as saying by a REGNUM correspondent that the airbus
departed from Yerevan at 01:47 a.m. local time. Because of bad weather
conditions the captain decided to fly back to Zvartnots Airport
in Yerevan, however air traffic control of Adler Airport through
Georgian colleagues conveyed information that weather conditions
permitted landing. The airbus tried to land again, but because of low
visibility the captain decided to start a missed approach procedure. At
03:35 a.m. Yerevan time the aircraft disappeared from radar screens,
some time later alarm was announced.
Russian navy and coastal guard found out that the crash occurred in
a 5 km distance from Sochi coast, the information was submitted to
the Armenian authorities.
As Movsisyan said, the airbus (hull No 32009, 1995) was subjected
to renewal and examination. The plane was insured. Right before
departure from Yerevan experts from Sabina Technics Company gave a
positive conclusion about technical conditions of the airbus.
According to Movsisyan, the plane was filled up with 10 tons of fuel,
and for a flight to Sochi only 3.5 tons were enough. At present
moment, the Armenian Civil Aviation Department and Armavia have
established operative headquarters to investigate details of the
crash. As Movsisyan noted, the investigation will be carried out by
Russian agencies in charge.

POSSIBLE VISIT OF OSCE MINSK GROUP CO-CHAIRS TO NK CONFLICT REGION TO BE DEFINED AFTER MOSCOW CONSULTATIONS
Author: E.Huseynov
TREND Info, Azerbaijan
May 3 2006
An issue on the forthcoming tour of the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs
to the region will be defined after the completion of the Moscow
consultations, a group on Nagorno-Karabakh at the Russian Foreign
Ministry told Trend.
The consultations by the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs, US Ambassador
Steven Mann, Russian Ambassador Yuriy Merzlyakov, and Bernard Fassier
and special envoy of the OSCE chairman-in-office, Andjey Casprzyk
started at the Russian Foreign Ministry in Moscow on Tuesday morning
(2 May).
Next steps by the co-chairs will be known as a result of consultations
due on 3 May, a group on Nagorno-Karabakh added.

ARMENIAN DEFENSE MINISTER TO HEAD PLANE CRASH INVESTIGATION
RIA Novosti, Russia
May 3 2006
YEREVAN, May 3 (RIA Novosti) – Armenian Defense Minister Serzh Sargsyan
will head an investigation into a plane crash early Wednesday that
claimed 113 lives, Armenia’s presidential press service said.
An Armenian airlines Armavia A-320 airbus came down about six
kilometers off Russia’s Black Sea coast while heading for an airport
in Adler, which services the resort of Sochi. In all, 105 passengers
and eight crew members were on board.
The Emergencies Ministry said bad weather was the most likely cause of
the tragedy. Rescuers said they recovered 25 bodies from the wreckage
so far.

ALAN SEMERDJIAN – WHEN THERE WAS SOMETHING WRONG WITH YOU
TheCelebrityCafe.com, NY
May 3 2006
– Generally, I just don’t like pretentiousness. Anything that goes out
of its way to claim that there is some sort of general truth beneath
it or greater energy, around which it orbits, irks me to the point
where I just naturally gravitate toward less “deep” material.
Sure, Jess Simpson may be an airhead, but she is also remarkably
forth-right about the fact, whereas you can find no end to the number
of frustrated artists and rockers whose work has been tainted by a
vicious self-importance. Of course, acting in the role of a critic
(even a poor one) requires no small degree of pretension either, so,
before I go off sounding like an utter hypocrite let me just say that I
really enjoyed much of what Alan Semerdjian put into his latest foray.
The New York Indie-rock/folk singer/songwriter would seem to be the
poster-child of post-modern nonsense run amok. His web-site describes
the album as blending “together indie-folk pop, alt-country forays
into the world of punk and free jazz, as well as subtle hints of his
Armenian-heritage…” I have no idea what the hell they are talking
about here, but to keep in step I’ll describe the tunes as electric
folk with a smidgeon of wild rock-west guitar and a prevailing gust of
poeticism. This kind of art-speak is what post-modernism is all about:
words, images and sound devoid of any firm content. The meaning is
supposed to be polymorphous I guess, but as far as judging the music
selection I encourage you to listen to what is here rather than how
its supporters would describe it.
To put it simply and unequivocally, this is alternative folk music.
Semerdjian screws around with some weird instruments now and then,
but they serve mostly to distract, as if to say, “Look at this,
it’s that Australian Aboriginal thingy in the background! That’s
different.” However, when he sticks to his strong suit, powerful lyrics
belted out by an almost-conversational beatnik voice, a scruffy guitar
and melancholy piano backing everything up, the results are enough
to make you want to start snapping spontaneously.
l_review/11919.html

AHMADINEJAD CONDOLES WITH ARMENIAN PRESIDENT ON PLANE CRASH
Islamic Republic News Agency, Iran
May 3 2006
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in a message to his Armenian counterpart
on Wednesday expressed his condolences over an Armenian plane crash
in which all on board were killed.
According to a report of Presidential Office Media Department, the
president in his message to President Robert Kocharian asked for God’s
mercy and blessing for victims and patience for the bereaved families.
An Airbus-320 of Armenian Airline crashed Wednesday morning in Black
Sea and all its crew and passengers were killed.
Bad weather in Suchi coast in the Black Sea has been blamed for
the crash.

F.KULOV EXPRESSES CONDOLENCES TO ARMENIAN PM OVER JET CRASH
Kyrgyzstan Development Gateway, Kyrgyzstan
May 3 2006
Prime Minister of Kyrgyzstan Felix Kulov has sent a letter of
condolences to Prime Minister of Armenia Andranik Margariyan over jet
crash near the town of Adler, which killed all passengers and the crew
of A-320 of the Armenian Airline, belonging to the air company Armavia.
In the message, F.Kulov expressed deep condolences on behalf of the
government of Kyrgyzstan and personally from him.
An A-320 passenger plane of Armenia Airlines on a flight from Yerevan
to Sochi crashed while doing a circle before landing at the Adler
Airport. There were 113 people on board the airliner.

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.