Water-air mystery

The commission to investigate the A320 crash is awaiting the recovery of the second recorder from the bottom

Yesterday, starting from 11 a.m., at the crash site of the Armenian Airlines A320 plane, which crashed and sank in the Black Sea on the night of May 3 during landing at Sochi airport, work resumed to search for the second flight recorder of the Airbus. On Monday afternoon, as the Vremya Novostey newspaper already reported, the first “black box” was lifted from a depth of 496 meters by the RT-1000 robotic manipulator (developed by scientists from the Gelendzhik scientific center “Yuzhmorgeology”), which recorded the negotiations of the aircraft crew members. It was seriously damaged as a result of a strong impact and due to exposure to the aggressive hydrogen sulfide environment of the Black Sea depths. Nevertheless, experts believe that the information in this recorder could have been preserved, and in the coming days it will begin to be deciphered, apparently in France, in the laboratory of the Airbus concern, which produces airliners of this type.

But for the commissions investigating this plane crash (there are three of them - the Interstate Aviation Committee, the General Directorate of Civil Aviation of Armenia and the Bureau of Investigation and Analysis of Aircraft Accidents of France), it is much more important to obtain data on the operation of the aircraft systems, which were recorded by the second flight recorder: they will be able to provide the exact answer to the question why the Armavia airbus, which, at the dispatcher’s command, stopped descending and began to go around as it climbed, suddenly lost speed and began to fall.

Yesterday, some agencies reported that the second, parametric recorder of the aircraft had been found and had even already been lifted aboard the Navigator tugboat, from the deck of which specialists remotely control the RT-1000 device. But Vremya Novostey’s sources at the Sochi headquarters for technical support of the work on lifting the “black boxes” of the Airbus did not confirm this information. At the time of going to press, the parametric recorder had not yet been discovered, although judging by its beacon signals, it is located only a few meters from the place where the voice recorder was found. The problem is that the second “black box” is hidden by at least a 50-centimeter layer of silt, just as the first recorder was hidden, and in order to find it, you have to wash away the silt with a pump mounted on a deep-sea vehicle.

Meanwhile, the fact of the discovery and recovery of an Airbus voice recorder from the bottom again provoked interest in this plane crash, and yesterday in various media, as in the first days after the tragedy, versions again appeared trying to explain the cause of the A320 crash. In particular, it was said that a source “close to the investigation” allegedly said that the plane could have crashed due to lack of fuel. But back on May 5, this version was rejected as untenable by Armenian Defense Minister Serzh Sargsyan, who heads the Armenian government commission. He stated that there is no reason to doubt that the plane was refueled at Yerevan airport as required by regulations. Let us remind you that the crashed airliner was flying from Yerevan to Sochi; there were 113 people on board, and all of them died.

Igor GLANIN, Sochi