Private plane flying from UAE to Turkey crashes, killing 11

TEHRAN, IRAN » A Turkish private jet flying from the United Arab Emirates to Istanbul carrying a group of young women crashed Sunday night in a mountainous region of Iran during a heavy rain, killing all 11 people on board, authorities said. The doomed aircraft days earlier carried a bachelorette party bound for Dubai.

Iranian state television quoted Mojtaba Khaledi, the spokesman of the country’s emergency management organization, as saying the plane hit a mountain near Shahr-e Kord and burst into flames. Shahr-e Kord is some 230 miles south of the capital, Tehran.

Khaledi later told a website associated with state TV that local villagers had reached the site in the Zagros Mountains and found only badly burned bodies and no survivors. He said DNA tests would be needed to identify the dead.

Villagers near the crash earlier said they saw flames coming from the plane’s engine before the crash, according to a state-run news agency.