Fly Armenia's certificate suspended amid Boeing mystery

PanARMENIAN.Net - The Civil Aviation Committee has suspended the air operator's certificate of Fly Armenia Airways whose plane, a Boeing 737-300, mysteriously found its way to Iran in February.

Armenia's aviation authorities probed the incident and found technical flaws undermining flight safety, the Committee said on Monday, June 14. The Committee added, however, the investigation is still ongoing and that the results will be submitted to the National Security Service.

The 737-300 departed Tallinn in February; its destination, according to Armenian authorities, should have been Hostomel in Ukraine, where it would be brought into shape and returned to the airline at a later date. But the plane headed south to Varan, Bulgaria instead, which is bizarre, given that Bulgaria, as well as Romania and the Baltic states through which the aircraft passed, are in the EU, and the EU has banned Armenian aircraft from flying through its airspace since June last year.

The following day, a plane with the same transponder left Bulgaria and entered Iranian airspace at around that same day.