YEREVAN, May 6 (RIA Novosti)-Bad weather most likely caused a dramatic loss of speed that led to an Armenian Airbus crashing into the Black Sea Wednesday, killing 113 people, the chairman of Armenia's aviation association said Saturday.
Dmitry Adashyan said, "In my opinion, which is based on preliminary information, the main version of the liner's loss was a loss of speed."
The Russian Emergency Situations Ministry said Wednesday that bad weather was most likely to have caused the crash and Adashyan, who is also a former head of Armenia's civil aviation authority, echoed the idea.
He said that after losing speed the plane's nose section dropped and fell into a spin.
"The resistance of a 'wet' plane increases several times and so the engines might not have had enough power, which could have caused the nose to drop," he said.
Adbashyan also said lighting could have been responsible for the tragedy.
"The Airbus might have crashed after a lightning strike," he said.
The A-320 operated by Armenia's Armavia was flying from the Armenian capital, Yerevan, to Adler airport, which services the popular Russian resort of Sochi, when it crashed six kilometers off the Russian coast early Wednesday morning.
