Armenian jetliner crash kills crew, passengers

MOSCOW – An Armenian passenger plane crashed in stormy weather early today off Russia’s Black Sea coast as it was headed in for landing, killing all 113 people on board, emergency officials said.

The Airbus A-320, which belonged to the Armenian airline Armavia, disappeared from radar screens just under four miles from the shore and crashed after making a turn and heading toward the Adler airport near the southern Russian city of Sochi, Emergency Situations Ministry spokesman Viktor Beltsov said. Rescue officials said all 113 people aboard the plane, including six children, were killed.

Wreckage from the plane was found near the shoreline, Beltsov said, and salvage workers said the fuselage was found at a depth of nearly 1,500 feet.

The plane disappeared from radar at about 2:15 a.m. local time during a flight from Yerevan to Sochi, a resort city on the Black Sea in southern Russia.

Beltsov said that the plane went down while trying to make an emergency landing; the Interfax news agency quoted the Russian air control agency as saying that the plane’s crew had not reported an emergency.