Controller May Have Contributed to Black Sea Crash

YEREVAN -- An aircraft traffic controller on duty when an Armenian plane crashed into the Black Sea killing 113 people may have played a role in the tragedy, the owner of the airline in the tragedy said Saturday.

Armavia Airlines head Mikhail Bagdasarov said a complete version of a recorded conversation between the air traffic controller at the Russian airport and the pilot of the Armenian plane showed that the pilot had acted correctly.

Bagdasarov said that a recording between Airbus pilot Grigory Grigoryan and traffic controller at Adler airport previously made public had been incomplete.

"The complete version of the taped conversation shows that the pilot of the A-320 jet was doing everything right, which cannot be said about the air traffic controller," Bagdasarov said in an interview with Armenian Internet site Panorama.am.

He said the ground controller had sent told the pilot to make a second circle before landing when the pilot was almost landing already.

"He had nearly 200 meters left to the runway when he was sent back to make a second circle. And this was at a time when the air traffic controller had no right to order but could only advise," Bagdasarov said.

However, he added he did not blame the air traffic controller.

"In such situations, you cannot say that the air traffic controller made the mistake that caused the accident," he said. "The controller made mistakes which made the situation worse." He said there could be a combination of reasons that caused the crash but cautioned against putting the whole blame on the pilot.

"He was an experienced, good pilot, one of the best," Bagdasarov said.

The Airbus was flying from the Armenian capital, Yerevan, to Adler airport, which services the popular Russian resort of Sochi, when it crashed six kilometers off the Russian coast early Wednesday morning.

The Russian Emergency Situations Ministry said bad weather most likely caused the tragedy.

In comments on rumors that the crew was incomplete, the Armavia owner said the crew included both a navigator and flight engineer.

"How can a plane take off without a navigator?" he said. "There is just a group of people who spend their time making up this sort of gossip." Armavia Airline set up on December 12, 1996 is Armenia's national airline company. On June 5, 2005, Bagdasarov, president of MIKA Armenia Trading, became the owner of 100% of the company's shares. Armavia passenger traffic totaled 507,000 in 2005 against 380,000 in 2004.

Armenia's civil aviation commission said it would hear comments from air traffic controller of the Adler airport Saturday, spokeswoman Gayane Davtyan said.

She denied rumors that the controller was being hidden for fear of the victims' families.

"Nobody is hiding the ground controller from anyone," Davtyan said, adding that he was working with commission experts on decoding the recordings.

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