MOSCOW, April 3 (RIA Novosti, Sergei Rudkovsky) - Weather conditions have deteriorated in the area where a search operation is continuing after an airliner crashed in the Black Sea off Russia's southern coast, local rescuers said Wednesday.
"It is raining hard, the temperature is 11 degrees Celsius, and wind speed is 6-11 meters per second. The sea is choppy," a spokesman for the local emergency situations department said.
A total of 113 passengers and crew died early Wednesday when an Armavia Airlines A-320 flying from the capital of Armenia, Yerevan, came down about six kilometers off Russia's Black Sea coast en route to the airport at Adler, which services the popular resort of Sochi.
The Emergency Situations Ministry said bad weather was the most probable cause of the tragedy, and a local Interior Ministry official said terrorism was unlikely.
"We are considering several versions: a mistake made by the pilot, a technical malfunction or a mistake by air traffic controllers," Igor Zhukov said.
