Russian diving and rescue operations experts have downplayed as “absurd” and “technically unfeasible” the statement made the other day by the Ukrainian Prosecutor’s Office to the effect that the debris of the ill-fated Tu-154 airliner, brought down over a year ago by a stray missile of Ukraine’s Air Defense, must be retrieved from the seabed. “Most likely, Ukrainian officials are trying to delay payment of compensation to the victims’ relatives, since the Ukrainian fleet still has expert divers who must have spelled out to their superiors the infeasibility of this undertaking,” said Vasyl Velychko, commander of the 328th detachment with the 40th Research Institute of Diving and Rescue Operations, in a December 4 interview with Interfax. According to him, “there are no technical means of retrieving the plane from a depth of 2,000 meters.” Among the reasons rendering such an operation impossible the Russian expert cited the lack of equipment and rescue boats fitted out for such an operation and the Black Sea’s saturation with hydrogen sulfide at deeper levels.
The impossibility of retrieving the Tu-154 debris has been also stressed by Mykola Makarchuk, acting chief of the Department of Search and Rescue Operations of the Russian Navy. Among the major difficulties he named “the vast search area, great depths, complexity and high costs of the operation.” Mr. Makarchuk stressed that with no exact coordinates of the crash area available, it could take the search team months to locate the debris. Moreover, they would have to search for fragments of the scattered fuselage. He also pointed up the lack of a suitable rescue boat. According to Mr. Makarchuk, the Navy has a deep-sea bathyscaph, Rus, which has been designed to work at depths of up to 6,000 meters. However, it is currently being upgraded. He went on to say that even if they manage to locate the airliner debris, retrieving them will be problematic. “The whole operation, for which a special expedition will have to be fitted out, will cost millions of dollars,” said Mr. Makarchuk.
Borys Kalynovsky, head of the relief fund set up to assist families of the Tel Aviv — Novosybirsk flight passengers who perished, also expressed indignation at the actions of the Ukrainian law enforcement. He called unfounded their demands to retrieve the Tu-154 debris from the seabed. As he put it, “the Ukrainian law enforcement agencies are playing for time to avoid charges being pressed against whoever is to blame.” The Ukrainian investigators “keep making unreasonable demands. First they want the plane retrieved from the seabed, then they want to have copies of passports of the plaintiffs notarized and given to the courts, which is not the usual practice neither in Russia, nor Ukraine.”
It will be recalled that at a December 3 press conference in Kyiv Oleksandr Atamaniuk, Deputy Prosecutor General cum chief of military prosecutor’s offices, stated that Ukraine’s prosecutors had insisted that the Tu-154 debris be retrieved from the seabed of the Black Sea to be “used as evidence of the fault of officials who reportedly violated regulations during the shooting practice.” He went on to say that the Prosecutor’s Office had submitted a corresponding application seeking legal assistance from the Russian Prosecutor’s Office.
