YEREVAN, May 3 (RIA Novosti, Gamlet Matevosyan) - A fatal plane crash off Russia's southern Black Sea coast early Wednesday was likely caused by bad weather conditions, the Armenian airline that operated the downed plane said Wednesday.
A total of 113 people are presumed dead after the Armavia-operated Airbus A-320 airliner plunged into the Black Sea in the early hours of Wednesday morning.
"Crew commander Grigory Surenovich Grigoryan was one of the [airline's] most experienced pilots and had flown Airbus airliners for years. Experts believe the crash was apparently caused not by human error but by bad weather conditions," the airline press service said.
It also said the A-320 had undergone a complete technical overhaul in April 2006, and experts from Sabina Technics had given a positive conclusion on its technical condition shortly before takeoff.
The A-320 passenger jet, which was flying from the Armenian capital, Yerevan, to an airport servicing the popular Russian resort of Sochi, disappeared from radar screens at 2:15 a.m. local time (Tuesday 10:15 p.m. GMT).
Prosecutors ruled out the possibility of a terrorist attack.
