This week specialists were finally able to take the black boxes of the Armenian plane crashed in Black Sea out of the water. “The boxes are seriously damaged”, said the Russian specialists right after taking the boxes out of the water, which made some people think that this “is a way of hiding the truth in the water”. Decoding will give us much information, but since they are not decoded yet people mention different scenarios. According to the Russian “Komsomolskaya Pravda” (CP) newspaper, one of the black boxes taken out contains the conversations of pilots with air navigation officers, as well as the passengers’ conversations in the plane. The second box contains information about the plane’s technical look, and any possible technical problems. But the black boxes will be decoded only in a month. According to the newspaper, the Russian group thinks it is more important to decode the conversation recorder box (it will be done in Moscow). As for the French specialists, it is more important to decode the technical recorder, which will be done in Paris. The French specialists think that their plane was in very good condition and now they want to prove that. “In spite of that, everyone in Sochi talks more about the scenario, according to which there was lack of oil in the plane”, writes the newspaper. This scenario was written first by the CP, but at that time no one paid attention to it. “Now specialists think that due to heavy cargo, the oil might not have been enough for the whole flight. The relatives of dead passengers say that there was heavy cargo in the plane, even unregistered cargo. They say that the plane’s fuel was intended for a normal flight, but since there was heavy cargo, it was not enough for the whole flight”, writes the newspaper. What was this heavy cargo? The newspaper states that the relatives of victims think that it was Armenian stone which was going to be used in Sochi. “Rumor also has it that it might be an Armenian cross-stone monument (Khachkar), which is used for cemeteries or churches”. The newspaper also writes that “former head of Armenian Airlines, Vyacheslav Yaralov was in the plane with his wife too, and was going to Sochi to be present during the funeral of his mother-in-law. Maybe this stone monument was his cargo”. The reporter assumes that the weight of this kind of stone is not less then one ton. “As we were informed, Yaralov was in good relations with the crew of the plane and airport officials, that’s why he was able to take this cargo without registering it”, writes the newspaper. We don’t know how the reporter makes such assumptions, or how the relatives of the victims can know what was in the plane if they didn’t establish any contacts with them. The newspaper states another scenario too, according to which the crew had to go for an extra turnover because the VIP passengers made the pilot do so. “We have information that due to bad weather the crew wanted to land in Krasnodar, but not in Adler. But they changed their mind unexpectedly and went for an extra turnover. And if there was heavy stone in the plane, after landing in Krasnodar they would have to make a lot of extra expenses to carry the stone back to Sochi”, writes the newspaper. The Russian mass media has mentioned the fact that when the plane approached the airport, the air navigation officer of Sochi advised the crew to go for an extra turnover due to poor weather conditions. So if we take into account these scenarios, the air navigations officer was not the only one that advised the crew to go for an extra turnover.
In closing, the reporter writes that “these are just scenarios and may be true or false. But we are afraid either of these scenarios doesn’t contradict the other, but goes along with the logic”.
As for the Armenian side, they don’t say anything about this yet. On the one hand, perhaps this is a right policy for this situation, but on the other hand the Russian side is doing its best to assure everyone that it was the Armenians’ fault.