Armavia Plane Crashes: At Least 100 People Parish Near Sochi

MOSCOW - An Armenian plane carrying at least 100 people aboard crashed in bad weather early Wednesday off Russia's Black Sea coast shortly before it was to land, emergency officials said. There was no sign of survivors.

The Airbus A-320, which belonged to the Armenian airline Armavia, disappeared from radar screens just under four miles from the shore and crashed after making a turn and heading toward the Adler airport near the southern Russian city of Sochi, Emergency Situations Ministry spokesman Viktor Beltsov said.

He said preliminary information indicated there were 114 people aboard. Earlier, Russian news agencies reported the plane was carrying 92 passengers, including five children, and eight crew.

Wreckage from the plane was found not far from the shoreline, Beltsov said. The Interfax news agency reported about three hours after the crash that rescue teams at the site pulled the body of a woman from the sea.

The plane disappeared from radar screens at about 2:15 a.m. local time, the RIA-Novosti agency reported. It was flying from the Armenian capital Yerevan to Sochi, a resort city on the Black Sea in southern Russia, ITAR-Tass reported.

Rescuers found parts of the plane about four miles from the shore, along with empty lifejackets — an indication that passengers had no time to put them on, ITAR-Tass quoted an unidentified local emergency official as saying.

The rescuers were working in a driving rain, Russian news agencies reported, and Beltsov said weather conditions were poor at the time the plane went down. He did not say whether authorities believe the weather caused the crash.