An Airbus A320 flown by the Armenian airline Armavia crashed into the Black Sea, killing all 113 passengers and crew onboard–the worst air crash in Armenia's history. In early reaction to the story, Christian Garbis said that the crash will be hard for all Armenians as well as for the victims’ families and that tourism by Armenians outside of the country will likely suffer temporarily.
Zarchka sends condolences to the families of all the victims and that the incident caused panic and anxiety across the country.
Everyone rushed to find out whether there were relatives or friends among the passengers. The telephone in our house wasn’t hung up the whole day. Later we learnt that my doctor’s brother’s young son, 25 years, was in the plane.
Glendale Chick notes that though reports indicate that the victims were nationals of, among other countries, Georgia, Armenia, and Russia, almost all were Armenian nationals. Writing at Blogrel, Harmick also writes about reading the passenger list and finding someone with his surname and his uncle's given name. He said that though it wasn't his uncle this drives home how personal the tragedy feels.
Harmick also says that Armavia is a good airline that will unfortunately suffer as a result of the accident. He worries that the crash may sink the airline.
Garen covers the reaction by Armenia's political establishment, noting that a parliamentary deputy was to have been on the flight, but decided not to go to Sochi at the last minute. It is also reported that Armenian's defense minister has rushed to southern Russia to take part in the investigation and that Friday and Saturday have been declared national days of mourning.
Blogrel has the complete list of victims.
1 comment
WeMedia: the second day
Morning, and welcome to our coverage of the second day of the WeMedia conference, organised by The Media Center, along with the BBC and Reuters. Today’s stuff is being held at Reuters HQ in Canary Wharf – a real legoland…