65 FEARED DEAD AS PLANE CRASHES IN IRAN MOUNTAINS
CRASH SPOT NOT FOUND Officials say poor weather impeding rescue efforts
TEHRAN: All 65 people on board an Iranian passenger plane were feared dead on Sunday after it crashed into the country’s Zagros mountains, with emergency services struggling to locate the wreckage in blizzard conditions. Aseman Airlines flight EP3704 disappeared from radar around 45 minutes after takeoff from Tehran’s Mehrabad airport, an airline official said.
TEHRAN: All 65 passengers and crew were feared dead in a plane crash in central Iran on Sunday after the domestic flight came down in bad weather in a mountainous region.
A spokesman for Iranian carrier Aseman Airlines had told state television everyone was killed, but the airline then issued a statement saying it could not reach the crash site and could not “accurately and definitely confirm” everyone died.
The airline had also initially said 60 passengers and six crew were on board the twin-engined turboprop ATR 72 that was flying to the southwestern city of Yasuj. But it later said there were a total of 65 people on board, as one passenger had missed the flight.
Iranian officials said rescue teams would work through the night, battling blizzard conditions to find the plane, which disappeared in the Zagros mountains.
Iran’s Red Crescent said the search was being severely hampered by the weather.
“The mountainous terrain is impassable. Thick fog and snow and rain have made it impossible to use helicopters, but yes the operation is ongoing and will continue,” said Morteza Salimi, head of its rescue and relief section.
He said there were 45 teams working around the Dena mountain of Iran’s southwestern Zagros range.
As night approached, bad weather prevented helicopters searching the probable crash site but emergency workers were scouring the mountainous area by land, ISNA news agency said.
Media reports said the plane disappeared from radar screens 50 minutes after taking off from Mehrabad airport in the southwest of the capital. It mainly handles domestic flights.
The man who missed the doomed flight told reporters of his conflicting emotions.
“God has been really kind to me but I am so sad from the bottom of my heart for all those dear ones who lost their lives,” the unnamed man told the Tabnak news website, which showed a picture of his unused ticket.
The blizzard was expected to end on Sunday night but heavy fog would continue until morning, a local governor told IRIB.
It was the third disaster to strike Iran in recent months, after an earthquake that killed at least 620 people in Kermanshah in November and 30 Iranian sailors were lost in an oil tanker collision off China’s coast last month.
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and President Hassan Rouhani issued messages of condolences. The president asked the transport minister to lead an investigation into the crash.
Iran has suffered several plane crashes in the past few decades. Tehran says U.S. sanctions have long prevented it from buying new aircraft or spare parts from the West. The crashed ATR was 25 years old, officials said.
A deal with world powers on Iran’s nuclear programme has lifted some of those sanctions, opening the way for airlines to update their creaking fleets.
Aseman signed a deal last year to buy at least 30 Boeing 737 MAX jets. National carrier Iranair has ordered 80 planes from Boeing and 100 from Airbus.
Based in the southern French city of Toulouse, ATR is a joint venture between Airbus and Italy’s Leonardo
Earlier air disasters include the crash of a Boeing 727 passenger plane in 2011 which killed 78 people in the northwest of Iran, and the 2009 crash of a Caspian Airlines Tupolev aircraft bound for Armenia which killed all 168 people on board.
One of Iran’s worst air accidents happened in February 2003 when an Iranian Ilyushin-76 troop carrier crashed in southeast Iran, killing all 276 Revolutionary Guard soldiers and crew.