Sole ground fatality in Sochi plane crash ID’d as Armenian-born airport officer

YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 1, ARMENPRESS. An airport employee who was the first responder to assist passengers of the crashed UTair Boeing 737-800 in Sochi and who died from a heart attack at the scene has been identified as an Armenian-born man, Armenia’s foreign ministry acting spokesperson Anna Naghdalyan told ARMENPRESS.

“The sole airport employee who died is an ethnic Armenian citizen of Russia,” she said.

According to Russian media the man is Vladimir Begiyan, head of the airport’s complex shift.

Naghdalyan said that no Armenians are among the victims.

At least 18 people were injured when a plane skidded of the runway and caught fire in Russia’s Black Sea resort city of Sochi early on Saturday, the Russian Health Ministry said on its website, TASS reports.

"By now, 18 people are listed as injured, three of them children. No deaths occurred," the ministry said.

A source in the city’s emergencies medical service said none of the victims was seriously injured.

An emergencies source earlier told TASS that an airport worker died of heart attack and about six people were diagnosed with carbon monoxide poisoning.

"Five or six people suffered from inhaling carbon monoxide, one child was hit with an elbow. One person died, but he wasn’t on board, it was an airport worker on duty, who died of heart attack while being taken to hospital," the source said.

At 02:59 Moscow time, a Boeing 737-800 plane (registration number VQ-BJI) of Russia’s UTair airline en route from Moscow to Sochi with 164 passengers and six crew members on board skidded off the runway and broke through a fence, ending up on a bank of a river. As a result, the plane’s landing gear and one of its wings were destroyed, and the left engine caught fire.

All passengers were promptly evacuated.

Russia’s aviation authorities and UTair are investigating the incident.

Edited and translated by Stepan Kocharyan