MOSCOW, May 3 - All 113 passengers and crew on board an Armenian airliner were killed on Wednesday when the plane crashed into the Black Sea off the Russian coast in heavy rain, the Russian Emergencies Ministry said.

An Armenian Airlines aircraft carrying about 100 people on a flight from Yerevan to the Black Sea resort of Sochi has disappeared from radar screens, Itar-Tass news agency, monitored by the BBC, said on Wednesday. [Reuters]

Investigators blamed the bad weather. The Airbus A-320 had been trying to land at Sochi, a popular holiday spot in southern Russia. Justice officials said they had no reason to suspect a bomb.

The Emergencies Ministry said rescue workers had found baggage, life jackets, pieces of wreckage and a patch of oil floating on the surface of the sea at the crash site.

At least 39 bodies had been retrieved from the water by 0900 GMT, along with dozens of body parts.

"According to preliminary information, all people on board are dead," a ministry spokeswoman said.

The plane, operated by Armavia, had been making a short flight of about an hour from the Armenian capital Yerevan. Most of the passengers were Armenian nationals.

Some passengers' relatives, hoping to collect the victims' bodies and bring them home, travelled to Sochi on board a special flight from Yerevan organised by the airline.

In the terminal at Yerevan's Zvartnots airport, airline officials posted a list of the dead on a noticeboard. Women who had lost relatives wept and cried out in grief.

SMALL BOATS

Russian television showed footage of small boats returning to shore with debris that they had picked up from the crash scene. Rescuers in diving gear were shown preparing themselves to enter the water to conduct searches.

Russia's Foreign Ministry said 26 of the passengers were Russian passport holders and almost all the rest were Armenians. The plane was carrying at least five children.

"I was waiting for a call from my mother that she had arrived okay. But she didn't phone, so I phoned myself and heard that this accident had happened," said Khapet Tadevosyan, 32, at Yerevan airport.

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