YEREVAN (Armenpress/RIAN)–An intergovernmental commission has finished deciphering the cockpit voice recorder from an Armenian A-320 passenger jet that crashed into the Black Sea on May 3–reported the Russian Transportation Ministry.
The Ministry said that the recorder had captured 33 minutes of exchanges between the pilot of the plane and air traffic controllers at Russia’s southern Adler airport–which services the popular resort of Sochi.
"It was established that most of the conversation between crewmembers took place in the Armenian language. Armenian Embassy representatives helped translate the talks into Russian and verified the translation," the Ministry said.
The statement also said the transcript would not be published in line with the standards and practices of the International Civil Aviation Organization. Under the Chicago aviation convention–information from the decoded black boxes is not subject to publication until the end of the accident’s examination.
Work on deciphering the second black box continues.
According to Armenian Ambassador to Russia Armen Smbatian–the decoding of just one of the black boxes does not give a complete picture of what caused the crash.
Smbatian said that decoding the second black box will take two or three weeks–after which authorities can comment on the cause of the plane crash–which resulted in the deaths of all 113 on board.
Meanwhile–friends and relatives of those killed are preparing to mark the 40th day after the tragedy occurred–in a ceremony to honor the dead.
Relatives will be transported to the crash site in Southern Russia by the Armenian-Russian and Armenian-Georgian Business Association–who pledged to cover the costs of the trip.
The ceremony will take place June 14 near the spot where the airline plunged into the Black sea. On the same day a local Armenian church in Adler will conduct a church service for the crash victims.