Search continues as 113 die in Black Sea air crash

GRIEF-STRICKEN relatives of the 113 victims of a Black Sea plane crash scrutinised photographs of bodies pulled from the water in hopes of identifying their loved ones yesterday as search-and-rescue boats plied the waters offshore.

A board was erected in the courtyard outside one of Sochi’s two morgues to display photos of the bodies. Some showed identifying objects like rings, necklaces and underwear.

Misha Akopian, aged 46, a resident of the nearby city of Adler said his cousin and the cousin’s daughter were returning to Sochi from Yerevan on the plane that plunged into the sea on Wednesday.

“There aren’t words to describe what’s happened, how people feel,” he said.

Russian Transport Minister Igor Levitin, meanwhile, said searchers have detected a radio signal from what was believed to be a large portion of the plane’s fuselage containing one of the “black box” flight data recorders.

The plane went down in heavy rain and poor visibility as it approached the airport in Adler, about 12 miles south of Sochi. The plane slammed into the water four miles offshore.

Boats continued to search for bodies and debris from the Armenian Airbus A-320, which originated in the Armenian capital of Yerevan. So far, 47 bodies have been brought in, 22 of them identified.

A spokeswoman for the Prosecutor General’s office, Nataliya Vishnyakova, dismissed the possibility of terrorism and other officials pointed to rough weather or pilot error as a likely cause.

The head of the Georgian air control agency, which oversaw 90% of the jet’s final flight, said the plane’s crew had begun to return to Yerevan because of poor weather but turned around when Russian air controllers announced the weather at Adler airport improved.

The Interfax news agency, citing a source in the commission investigating the disaster, said information indicated the crew was informed just three to four miles from the runway, when the plane was at 990 feet altitude, that landing was “not recommended.”