SOCHI, May 4 (RIA Novosti) -Russia's transportation minister reiterated Thursday that bad weather was the most likely cause of an air crash of the Black Sea that claimed 113 lives in the early hours of Wednesday morning.
The Emergency Situations Ministry had previously advanced the stormy conditions as the most probably cause of the Airbus tragedy, and Igor Levitin said today that recordings of the A-320 crew's conversations with air traffic controllers suggested that the plane had crashed on its second attempt to land.
"It means that the pilot decided to make for a second circle due to the weather conditions," Levitin said. "It was the captain's right."
Andrei Agadzhanov, a deputy director of the aircraft's owners, Armenia's Armavia Airlines, said a technical fault could not have caused the accident as the plane was in a good technical condition.
"[Our] airplanes are periodically subject to detailed inspections, and are given a technical inspection before each flight," Agadzhanov said.
