“Who is responsible for compensating the families and third parties? Why didn’t the General Department of Civil Aviation react in a timely fashion?” he asked. The department maintains that the plane had no Armenian registration, thus it has nothing to say about insurance or compensation to families of the killed and injured.
Samvel Gevorgyan, whose father died in the Congo crash, said that the family has received no information at all on compensation.
Poghosyan told Hetq.am that it cost $3,500 a quarter to insure the lives of the crew and that insurance was a requirement for getting a flight permit. But he said a rule requiring technical inspection of the aircraft before the issuance of life insurance was not enforced.
For older aircraft built at the Ilyushin Aviation factory, a design board conducts a technical inspection and gives flight permissions. But the aircraft that crashed is not listed here, even among planes whose licenses have expired.
Shahen Petrosyan, head of the General Department of Civil Aviation of Armenia from 1993 to 1996, said problems with forged insurance are nothing new.
Forging insurance paperwork in aviation is lucrative, he said, and recalled one time when representatives of the Supreme Council of the Republic of Armenia approached him with a simple scheme to make money. A portion of the fee from each ticket sold to customers would be given to local insurance representatives. These representatives, using their links in Russia, including Duma deputies, would then forge the insurance documents.
According to Serob Karapetyan, head of the Civil Aviation Department’s Flight Readiness Unit, the operator or the insurer assumes the liability for compensation -- in the case of this fatal flight, the Congolese company Aero-Service. But Aero-Service has not accepted any responsibility either.
Armenian Foreign Ministry spokesman Tigran Balayan told Hetq.am that Armenia’s Embassy in Egypt contacted Aero-Service representatives, who said their company had only leased the plane and assumed no liability since it has no connection with the crew or any work contracts. They said Ridge Airways, listed as owners of the plane, should be held accountable.
It is possible that after the plane was removed from the Armenian registry, it simply wasn’t registered anywhere. Tigran Balayan, spokesman for the Armenian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said the Armenian government wasn’t able to receive any documentation, including the original contract, from the Congo. The Congo government hasn’t officially contacted Armenia to resolve the matter. Balayan also said that the Foreign Ministry has nothing more to do in the matter and that the families of the dead crew members can take their compensation claims to the courts in Armenia.