SOCHI, May 11 (RIA Novosti) - French experts have left the Black Sea port of Sochi in a bid to pinpoint the location of the flight data recorders of an Armenian airliner that crashed last week killing 113 people, emergency services said Thursday.
The black boxes are seen as the key to understanding why the Airbus plunged into the sea in stormy weather six kilometers (3.7 miles) from the coast early on the morning of May 3.
Vladimir Yerygin, who oversees technological support for the operation to recover the recorders, said the specialists from Toulouse-based Airbus were planning to use advanced hydroacoustic equipment to find the precise location of the black boxes and later recover them using a deep-sea vehicle.
"The equipment brought by French experts consists of four buoys placed on small speedboats," Yerygin said. "They will help us to establish the precise location of the black boxes."
The official said the main group of French experts would set up a data-processing center on board one ship, and another ship with the Kalmar deep-sea craft would continue scanning the seabed for parts of the A-320.
