TURKISH PLANE CRASH: 11 DEAD INCLUDING A BRIDETOBE

TEHRAN: Investigators on Monday found the “black box” from a Turkish private jet that crashed in an Iranian mountain range on its way from the United Arab Emirates to Istanbul, killing all 11 people on board that included a Turkish bride-to-be and her bachelorette party.

Authorities recovered all the dead from the crash site in the Zagros Mountains outside of the city of Shahr-e Kord, some 370 kilometers (230 miles) south of Iran’s capital, Tehran, according to a report by the state-run IRNA news agency.

Officials have so far identified eight bodies, including that of Mina Basaran, the 28-year-old daughter of the chairman of Turkey’s Basaran Investment Holding, the semi-official Mehr news agency reported Monday.

Heavy rains and wind in the mountain range since the crash Sunday made it impossible for helicopters to land in the area, though officials hoped to bring the bodies down from the mountain later in the day, IRNA said.

Families of the victims arrived Monday in Shahr-e Kord, accompanied by Turkish diplomats, IRNA reported.

The flight took off Sunday from Sharjah International Airport in the UAE, home to the low-cost carrier Air Arabia. A little over an hour into the flight, the aircraft rapidly gained altitude and then dropped drastically within minutes, according to FlightRadar24, a flight-tracking website.

It remains unclear what caused the crash, though a witness told state television the Bombardier CL604 was on fire before it hit the mountain. Finding the aircraft’s “black box” will help investigators trying to piece together what happened.