Rumors about Armavia Crash
When the Armenian Defense Minister was immediately despatched by President Kocharian to Sochi after the tragic crash of an Armavia A320 on 3 May that claimed 113 lives, no media reports questioned why. Indeed, while in other countries the Minister of Transport might concern themselves with the accident, it would usually be up to an independent enquiry to determine the cause of the accident, and not a state official with close business links to the main shareholder of the airline in question.
As a result, rumors in Yerevan as well as news reports and blogs on the Internet suggest that things might not be as they were initially reported. Whereas the official line has been that bad weather was the cause of the crash, many Armenians say that the crash was caused by gunfire in the aircraft.
“Everyone in Yerevan speak that sounds like shooting were heard before the plane fell,” states journalist of the Novoye Vremya Armenian newspaper Nora Kananova.
In her words, “Allegedly former Security Service chief Karlos Petrosyan got a call late at night from his son Aram, who was aboard A-320 airbus and shots were heard. It was the moment, when the plane fell into the sea…”
Ara Manoogian over at Martuni or Bust has more on this fantastic theory, and says that the son of the former head of National Security Service (former KGB) of the Republic of Armenia might be to blame for the worst aircraft crash in Armenia’s history that made headline news around the world.
The one thing that is not mentioned in the article is that the pilots body was found and he had been shot.
The mention of Aram Petrosyan’s call to his father was mentioned I’m guessing to safely tell the story of what really happened. From what I have been told, he called his father to tell him that the plane is going to turn back to Yerevan and wanted his dad to contact the plane and insist on them landing on Sochi. Apparently he was outraged and then had an altercation with the flight crew who were telling him it was too dangerous to land. That’s when Aram shot someone in the cabin and one of the bullets put a hole in the outer skin caused the cabin to depressurize and the plane to rip open.
There were also quite a few very wealthy business persons on board the flight who were well connected with people in government.
To be honest, I find such rumors fantastic even for Armenia, but one thing’s for sure. People in Yerevan are talking about this version of events, and many seem to believe it. Only goes to show how they view the behaviour of government officials and their families, and how little they believe the state-controlled TV news. Add to that the fact that the Minister of Defense was sent to conduct the official enquiry and that the A-320’s black boxes have yet to be found, no wonder the rumor mill in Yerevan is running wild.
Of course, I don’t discount this version of events. I mean, anything can happen in Armenian circles when the sons of current and former officials are involved, but I do consider that an independent enquiry must be established preferably by European investigators and that the black boxes must be found and their content released to the international media. Instead, Mikhail Baghdasarov, a close business associate of the Defense Minister and the main shareholder in Armavia, denies the claims.
Mikhael Baghdasarov, a Russia-based Armenian businessman, who owns the biggest air company, said flight recorders have to be decoded which only Airbus’ experts can do, since only the company has the special clue. He said the company has no information about exactly when the flight recorders could be retrieved from the depth of about 495 meters. Baghdasarov then described rumors that the wrecked A320 carried huge sums of money, that there were shots before it fell into the sea and that the pilot might have died of a heart stroke or a shot as ‘nonsense.”
Bizarre.
Anyway, whatever the reason for the crash, I questioned the Defense Minister’s involvement in this matter when it was announced immediately after the crash, and it’s good to see that others are finally beginning to do the same. However, I would stress that all of the information contained in this post are so far only rumors circulating in the Armenian media and among the population. Perhaps they should be treated as such until the findings of an independent investigation are released. However, what if the only investigation conducted is by officials business links to the owner of Armavia?