Translated material
Aggressive environment
The mystery of the death of the Armenian airliner may be destroyed by hydrogen sulfide
The ongoing search operation in the Black Sea off the coast of Sochi, where an Armenian Airlines A320 passenger plane crashed on May 3, has not brought any results in recent days. Rescuers were unable to find any more wreckage of the plane or the bodies of the dead.The airliner A320 (tail number 320099) of the Armenian Airlines company was flying Yerevan-Sochi on the night of May 3 and, while landing at the destination airport, fell into the sea at 2.13, not reaching the shore 5 km. There were 105 passengers and eight crew members on board the plane, none of them managed to escape.
In Russia and Armenia, a few hours after the airbus crash, state commissions were created to investigate the causes of the emergency. The Russian one was headed by Transport Minister Igor Levitin, the Armenian one by Defense Minister Serzh Sargsyan. Members of both commissions flew to Sochi and worked here together until May 6. When it became clear that the operation to detect the “black boxes” of the Airbus was dragging on, the ministers left for Moscow and Yerevan. Since May 6, the headquarters of the Russian commission has been holding meetings in the capital.
After the mourning events held on May 5 (this day was declared a mourning day in both Russia and Armenia), relatives of those killed in the plane crash began to leave Sochi. In total, more than 300 of them arrived at the resort. On the morning of May 5, they were taken on two ships to the site of the plane crash, and in the evening a memorial rally was held on the square near the Sochi seaport. Torches and candles burned in people's hands, and wreaths were lowered into the sea.
Only 44 families were able to take the remains of their relatives from Sochi. Rescuers found 51 bodies on the surface of the sea, or rather, what was left of them. Moreover, all these terrible discoveries were made in the first 24 hours after the tragedy. In the following days, nothing more was discovered at sea. On May 4, it was reported that 48 bodies were found at the scene of the disaster, but on the morning of May 6, experts determined that these were the remains of not 48, but 51 people. 44 were identified (34 citizens of Armenia, 10 citizens of the Russian Federation, and in total on board, besides citizens of Armenia, there were 27 Russians and one citizen of Ukraine). The remaining seven can only be identified through DNA testing. All close relatives of the 69 victims who have not yet been identified or found have already been tested and are now waiting at home for news.
On May 5, French specialists took direction finding signals from two radio beacons located in the aircraft’s “black boxes” (there were a total of three recorders on board that recorded flight parameters). At the same time, rescuers, using their sonars, established that there was a lot of debris at the bottom in this place. Moreover, the coordinates of this point coincided exactly with the coordinates of the point at which contact with the aircraft was lost by the air traffic control service locators at Sochi Airport.
The main problem, as rescuers say, is that parts of the fuselage, wings, engines and “black boxes” lie at great depths - about 680 meters. In the following days, May 6 and 7, the rescue ship Zaliv, equipped with the experimental deep-sea vehicle Kalmar, worked at the scene of the disaster. With the help of this small remote-controlled robot, it was possible to establish that the depth at which the debris was found was less - about 450 meters. But lifting the “black boxes” from there is a difficult task. From a depth of 200 meters in the Black Sea, an aggressive hydrogen sulfide zone begins, and the deeper, the higher the concentration of this deadly gas. Experts believe that in such an environment the aircraft’s “black boxes” will “live” no more than one month.
Meanwhile, without transcripts of the flight recorders of the deceased Airbus, it is apparently impossible to establish the causes of the disaster. The transcript of the crew's conversations with dispatchers showed nothing. Therefore, attempts to detect and raise “black boxes” continue. Yesterday, Airbus engineers, who arrived from France in Sochi on Tuesday, installed a sonar on the Navigator motor ship, which they brought to more accurately determine the location of the flight recorders. According to experts, this locator, if successful, will give the coordinates of where the “black boxes” are located, with an accuracy of up to a meter.