LYUBERTSY (Moscow Region), May 16 (RIA Novosti) - An Armenian airliner crashed into the Black Sea on May 3 after the pilot misread the weather, the Russian Air Force commander said Tuesday.
A total of 113 people died when the Airbus A-320 operated by Armenia's Armavia flying from the Armenian capital, Yerevan, came down in stormy weather six kilometers (3.7 miles) from Adler airport, which services the popular Russian resort of Sochi.
"It is obvious that the pilots misread the conditions, so the weather is the main cause of the crash," Vladimir Mikhailov said.
At the same time, he said the pilot of the Airbus had made "absolutely the right decision - to return [to Yerevan]."
A recording of a conversation between the pilot and an air-traffic controller made public shortly after the tragedy revealed that the Airbus crew wanted to return to the Armenian capital before a decision was taken to land in Russia.
Mikhailov said an operation under way to retrieve the airliner's flight recorders, which are believed to be at a depth of 496 meters (1,627 feet), was economically unjustifiable.
"We'll recover them - only to see that the cause of the crash was the weather," the commander said, adding that the "black box issue" was being blown out of proportion, which could only hurt the bereaved.
Deep-sea work to recover the black boxes was suspended Tuesday due to strong winds at the scene.
Nevertheless, Mikhailov said Russian experts were ready to take part in decoding the A-320's flight records.
