Citizen of Vedi city of Armenia, Revik Grigoryan died in A319 aircraft owned by “Aeroflot” company during a flight from Moscow to Yerevan on January 7. The mentioned air company and Zvartnots airport have informed Mass Media only that the mentioned aircraft landed in Volgograd that day and arrived in Armenia with nine hours delay. They did not inform any other details. Definitely they don’t inform any other details because of the fact that due to the failure of the mentioned air company to handle services to the passengers duly they have fallen in stress and the body was left in the aircraft with the passengers for nine hours. The representatives of the air company have not taken any steps to prevent that situation. As for the staff of Zvartnots airport, which is considered to be the modernist airport in the region, they have failed to inform any details to the relatives of the passengers waiting for them at the airport, as a result of which they thought the died person was their relative. In any other normal country the passengers would bring a court case against the air company and ask huge financial compensations for abusing their moral rights and would receive compensation. However, Armenia is not a normal country, but an “organized state”.
This information seems to be reliable, but there is a big tragedy behind this information, as a result of which the other 55 passengers of the flight are still in heavy psychological conditions. A woman flying from Moscow to Yerevan via US-Moscow-Yerevan transit flight informed about the horror they felt during the flight and asked us not to discover her name. It is worth mentioning that the Armenian party and the responsible bodies haven’t tried to investigate that case and protect the basic rights of the Armenian citizen. “The boarding time was at 24:00. When boarding we noticed that a young man was feeling bad. He was with another young man, who was definitely his cousin. I thought he was drunken, but he couldn’t stand and was moving. Later the airport’s doctors came there and checked his documents. Some time later they brought that guy in the plane by wheelchair. He felt very bad. He had a rest for some time. In one hour, during the flight, he wanted to go to the toilet, his cousin escorted him. It turned out that his blood pressure was too high,” said the passenger and described how that young man fell down and died while his body was shaking. The passengers were in stress and tried to give artificial respiration to that young man, but it did not help. The airplane had to land in Volgograd. According to our interlocutress, the administration of “Sheremetevo” airport of Moscow did not have the right to allow that young man with the sickness he had (it was written in his documents) to fly. “They said he had problems with lungs. Now please imagine that most of the passengers did not know that fact and were giving him artificial respiration. Besides that before boarding we could see that he didn’t look well and he was suffering and they must not let such people fly. However, they brought him into the plane by wheelchair,” tells the witness. After landing in Volgograd the passengers were treated badly too. “People were coming, having a look and the died guy and leaving. Later they covered his body with a coat, but did not say anything to the passengers. They kept us in Volgograd for nine hours while the body was in the plane too. All we were in stress, there were children with us too and we spent those horrible nine hours in close conditions… Can you imagine that we were in stress, we were hungry and in a close area? The Russian stewardesses were ignoring us and treating badly,” said the lady and added that during that period some investigation and customs services officers entered the airplane, but none of them asked any questions to the passengers. She says that even the investigation officers were discussing a version that the guy might have been killed in the airplane. “It seemed that everyone was trying to escape from responsibilities. We suggested to collect signatures witnessing that his felt bad during the flight and we had witnessed him dying, but no one paid any attention to us. They even did not give us water. We were waiting that at least they would take the microphone and inform us what processes were going on. The airplane administration had left and there were only two stewardesses with us… It was really horrible to stay in the closed plane with that body and have no information what would happen to us later,” said the lady and added that in answer to their questions the stewardesses said that they did not know anything. The dead body was not even removed to another place so that the passengers don’t see it. “Besides that, if he had lunge sickness it was not hygienic and humanistic to leave him on the chair for nine hours. The passengers were screaming. After he died there in the plane his body was left there with us for about nine hours,” the witness says. However, later after that time period the body was taken out of the plane and the aircraft was allowed to fly to Yerevan. Passengers are wandering why they took the body to the morgue of Volgograd having kept it in the plane for nine hours. As for “Zvartnots” airport, the passengers were not suggested even psychological support here and were not given any other information concerning the incident. Our interlocutress has been living in the US during the recent 20 years. During her trip to Armenia the mentioned incident has affected her health and till now she is receiving treatment.
We have also talked to a relative of a passenger arriving by the same flight on January 7, who had gone to the airport to meet his relative. “At Zvartnots airport we were told that the plane was landing at 3:05. We were not informed about the reasons why the plane was being late. People, who were meeting the passengers, were confused since they did not have any information why the plane was being late. They were periodically reporting that the plane would land in 30 minutes, 40 minutes, later – in one hour, but we didn’t know about the tragedy that had happened in the plane,” said our interlocutor. One of the passengers called his relative form Volgograd and told that a person had died in the plane and for that reason the plane was going to be late. “Now please imagine what was happening there: people thought that person was their relative. It was horrible. They had to arrive at 3 but it was 8 and they hadn’t arrived yet… Some were losing consciousness, others were getting nervous… There were people, whose relatives were sick and there were children in the plane too. The airport staff refused to give any information, it was horrible. At 9 the plane arrived and when we met our relatives we understood that they had lived a horror in Volgograd. At that time the airport staff were joking that in that modern airport the situation was like in a brothel”.