168 Killed In Caspian Air Plane Crash
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A Caspian Airlines Tupolev Tu-154 crashed in northwestern Iran on Wednesday on its way to Armenia and all 168 people on board were killed, Iranian media reported.
"On board the plane there were 151 adults, 2 children and 15 crew members," a Caspian Airlines representative said at Yerevan Airport.
"15 or 16 minutes after take-off the plane fell near the Iranian city Qazvin about 150 kilometres north of Tehran," he said, adding it was a Tu-154 aircraft and that the cause of the crash was not clear and the black box had not yet been found.
Crying relatives gathered at Yerevan airport and on one wall a notice listed people who were on board.
A senior Iranian provincial official, Sirous Saberi, said the aircraft had experienced technical problems and had tried to make an emergency landing. "Unfortunately the plane caught fire in the air and it crashed," he told semi-official Fars News Agency.
Television showed footage of debris from the plane and some body parts. Eight members of Iran's national junior judo team and two coaches were among the dead, the semi-official Mehr News Agency said.
It was the third deadly crash of a Tupolev Tu-154 in Iran since 2002 and the deadliest crash in the Islamic Republic since 2003 when an Ilyushin Il-76, also Russian built, crashed into a mountain.
"It's been a major disaster with pieces of aircraft spread over an area of 200 square metres," a fire service official told state television.
"There was an explosion which left an indentation 10 metres deep in the ground. There was nothing we could do. We tried to put out the fire as best we could," he said.
Television pictures also showed a large crater gouged into farmland with mangled pieces of metal scattered around. Smoke rose from the site as police and bystanders gathered around.
TOTALLY DESTROYED
"The Tupolev plane has been totally destroyed and the corpses, unfortunately, have been totally burned and destroyed. All on board are dead," Qazvin police commander Massoud Jafarinasab told Fars.
The official IRNA news agency said it crashed at 11:33 am (0703 GMT) but Jafarzadeh later told state television this was the time it departed from the capital's Imam Khomeini International airport.
Iran has suffered several major air disasters over the last decade, some also involving Tupolev planes.
Boeing has not exported a plane to Iran since 1979, when the US government imposed sanctions against Tehran.
Those sanctions have also hampered Iranian efforts to buy spares for US planes bought earlier or to buy European planes powered by US-built engines such as some Airbus airliners.
In September 2006, 29 people were killed when an Iran Air Tour Tupolev 154 caught fire on landing in the northeastern city of Mashhad. In 2002, all 118 people aboard were killed when an Iran Air Tours Tupolev 154 crashed near the western city of Khorramabad.
Caspian Airlines' Davudyan said around 20-25 passengers were Armenian citizens. Iran is home to some 100,000 ethnic Armenians, many of whom frequently use the flights between Tehran and Yerevan to visit relatives in Armenia.
