The passengers on the first plane were the relatives of the victims of the plane crash (120 people), who had left for Sochi on the day of the crash to find the bodies of their relatives and bring them to Yerevan. Minutes later, the IL-87 plane of the Russian Emergency Situations Department arrived at “Zvartnots” airport with the identified bodies of the citizens. Twenty-six of the bodies were transferred to the state forensic medicine morgue by police cars. Eleven of the victims’ bodies, who were citizens of Armenia living in different Marzes, were immediately handed over to the relatives. Six bodies were taken home from the morgue yesterday. Words can’t express what was going on at the “Zvartnots” airport and later on at the state forensic medicine morgue. Despite their severe losses, some people were simply consoled with the fact that the bodies had been found and they can bury them in the homeland.
The search/rescue team was able to find and transfer the body of Lusine Badayan, born in 1998. But Lusine’s body was not the only one in the plane. The eight-year old girl’s parents also died in the crash. The parents’ bodies either haven’t been found yet or, if found, haven’t been identified by the relatives. It’s quite possible that Lusine’s body will be kept in the morgue’s cold room until they find the parents.
There are some people who are in a terrible state because some of their relatives’ bodies have been found, while the others’ remain missing. Citizen of Sisian Henrik Abrahamyan was one of those people. Abrahamyan had gone to the state forensic medicine morgue to transfer the body of his relative Hayrapet Antonyan to Sisyan. H. Antonyan had left for Sochi in search of work.
“He wasn’t alone. He was with one of his friends, Hmayak Hambartsumyan. They still haven’t found Hmayak’s body,” said H. Abrahamyan as he wiped his tears.
One of the close friends of stewardess Anaida Abelyan, who also died in the crash, said some things about Abelyan at the morgue.
“She had two wonderful boys. She was a wonderful mother and a great woman. She had been a stewardess for 28 years,” said Anaida Abelyan’s friend as she wiped her tears.
While at the morgue, we met Anahit Avetisyan, who had come to the morgue to find the body of her niece Anahit Khachatryan-a resident of the Avshar village in Ararat Marz. She heard on television that her niece’s body had been transferred to Armenia. However, she wasn’t able to find the body at the morgue. A. Khachatryan and her husband Albert Baghdasaryan had left for Sochi to live there with their two kids. Her husband’s body still hasn’t been found.
“We’re waiting for further information. If they could at least find it. They told me that they barely recognized my niece. Even her two sons weren’t able to recognize their mother,” says A. Avetisyan.
According to the relatives, not all the bodies could be recognized. Some of them were completely decayed and the relatives mainly recognized them by their clothes, others by their rings, etc. As of May 5, only 41 bodies were recognized out of the 53. Thirty-one of them were citizens of Armenia, while 10 were from Russia. It seems as though people have already lost all hope of ever finding their relatives. In the best case scenario, the search/rescue team finds parts of the bodies in the sea.
According to specialists, the salty seawater decays the bodies and after a couple of days, it will be nearly impossible to find the bodies. Currently, the bodies are going through DNA tests for identification in Sochi. According to Minister of Transportation of Russia Igor Levitin, nearly 21 relatives of the victims have gone through DNA tests. The tests will take three days.
“We haven’t found any bodies for the past three days. People are in a state of uncertainty, they are mourning, depressed and don’t know what to do,” said National Assembly MP Ashot Aghbabyan during a telephone conversation. He had left for Sochi on the first plane to arrive at the scene of the accident. If the bodies are not found, then the relatives who had left for Sochi will simply be forced to bring a handful of soil and water from the Black Sea as relics to bury in Armenia. It is worth mentioning that currently, the search/rescue team hasn’t found the bodies of some well-known passengers, including head of the “Zvartnots” airport VIP department Albert Azaryan, former director of the “Armenian Airlines” Vyacheslav Yaralov, former Minister of Internal Affairs of Armenia Husik Harutyunyan, son of former head of the National Security Service of Armenia Aram Petrosyan, as well as Benjamin Khachatryan, who was a resident of Rostov and pretty popular in his hometown Gyumri.
In the afternoon, the relatives were waiting for the second plane to arrive from Sochi with the bodies. But the flight was postponed for a while. It is expected to bring another seven bodies to Yerevan.
“The number of bodies transferred to Yerevan depends on how many citizens will be identified and whether the relatives will actually want to bury the bodies in Armenia,” said head of the territorial integration rights department of the Ministry of Territorial Management of Armenia Khachatur Vartanyan, who is also a member of the intergovernmental commission for transferring the bodies to Armenia and organizing the funerals. The Minister of Defense of Armenia Serge Sargsyan returned from Sochi on May 5. He had gone there to analyze the motives and circumstances of the plane crash. Minster of Transportation of Russia and head of the search/rescue team of the A-320 plane crash Igor Levitin also returned to Moscow from Sochi. Deputy Minister of Transportation Sergey Arestov will continue heading the search/rescue. Defense Minister of Armenia Serge Sargsyan said yesterday that the search/rescue team had stopped working due to the fact that the relatives had gone out into the sea to pay tribute to the victims. The minister said that work continued after that. He added that there is no deadline.
“The search/rescue team will work as long as necessary, until all the bodies are found. Experts say that it is quite possible that the bodies at the bottom of the sea will rise to the surface of the sea,” said Sargsyan.
He also assured that the Armenian side will actively participate in the investigation process. It is worth mentioning that the French and Georgian sides would also like to participate in the investigation.