Iranian plane wreckage located near top of mountain
TEHERAN — Iranian search teams have located the wreckage of a passenger plane that crashed into western mountains at the weekend, official IRNA news agency reported on Tuesday.
According to Morteza Salimi, the chief of Rescue and Welfare Organization, debris of the plane was spotted near Nogol village on the heights of Dena Mountain.
State television aired footage showing the crash site as investigators searched for the plane’s flight recorders.
Ramezan Sharif, the spokesman of Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps, said helicopters found the wreckage on Tuesday morning.
If the weather permits, IRGC helicopters would be able to reach the location and send rescue forces, Sharif added.
Aseman Airlines flight EP3704 disappeared in the Zagros range on Sunday morning, around 45 minutes after taking off from Teheran.
Official reports confirmed that all 65 people on board were killed in the crash.
Efforts to locate the wreckage were hampered by heavy snow and fog, but the weather finally cleared on Tuesday morning, giving helicopter teams much better visibility.
A reporter from state broadcaster IRIB who spoke to one of the pilots said he had seen “scattered bodies around the plane” and that it was located in Noghol village, around 4,000 meters up Dena mountain.
“Since yesterday the Guards’ drones started carefully identifying the geographical area where the plane had probably crashed and this morning two helicopters of the air forces were dispatched to the location,” Sharif said.
Snowmobiles were deployed earlier on the 4,409-meter peak, where more than 100 mountaineers have also been aiding the search.
“Last night, a number of people stayed on the mountain and through coordination with local guides managed to search all crevices,” Mansour Shishefuroosh, head of a regional crisis center, told the ISNA news agency.
A team of crash investigators from French air safety agency BEA were also due to arrive in Iran on Monday, but their arrival had not yet been confirmed.