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Twin-engine ATR-72 crashes during flight from Tehran to Yasuj city
TEHRAN: An Iranian passenger plane with 66 people on board has crashed in central Iran during a flight from Tehran to the city of Yasuj, according to local and foreign media reports on Sunday.
A spokesperson for the Aseman Airlines said that the air crash killed all 66 people on board. The plane went down in a mountainous area near the town of Semirom, the ISNA news agency quoted emergency services spokesperson Mojtaba Khaledi, as saying.
The Iranian Red Crescent said it had deployed to the area, which was quite foggy at the time of the crash. The Press TV reported that the semi-private air carrier was carrying 60 passengers and six crew members. The ATR-72, a twin-engine turboprop, is used for short-distance regional flying.
Authorities said that they would be investigating the cause of the air crash. The Aseman Airlines has dismissed the possibility of technical failure, pinning the blame solely on bad weather. However, local news media reported that the ill-fated aircraft had technical problems in the past few weeks.
Saj Ahmad, chief analyst at Strategic Aero Research Centre, said that it was premature to rule out anything. “Granted, weather may have been an issue, but it’s too early to speculate,” he said. On October 26, the Aseman Airlines had said that the aircraft in question was back in service after being grounded for seven years.
The company deleted that announcement from its social media platforms, but a screenshot of its Instagram account is still circulating. The aircraft had made an emergency landing on January 25. It later returned to Tehran’s Mehrabad airport for technical checks where the problem was apparently fixed.
Aviation safety specialist and former pilot David Learmount said weather in the mountains where the plane crashed was pretty bad. “It looks as if, when the aircraft was carrying out its initial descent towards its destination, it was in the wrong position and it hit mountains,” he said.
“Basically, it’s a failure of navigation. An airplane hitting mountains in clouds is like a ship hitting rocks.” According to Learmount, the jet that crashed was a very well-tested airplane model, but the carrier was not unfamiliar with accidents in Iran’s difficult terrain.
Under decades of international sanctions, Iran’s commercial passenger aircraft fleet has aged, with air accidents occurring regularly in recent years. Following the 2015 nuclear deal with the world powers, Iran signed deals with both Airbus and Boeing to buy scores of passenger planes.
Deadliest plane crashes in Iran since 2003
– 2014 –
On August 10, an Antonov An-140 run by Sepahan Airlines carrying 40 passengers and eight crew crashed moments after it took off from Tehran. Thirty-nine people were killed and nine others severely injured. The pilot narrowly missed buildings and a busy market before crashing into a concrete wall. Iranian authorities said the cause of the accident was engine failure and faulty alarm signal.
– 2011 –
On January 9, an Iran Air Boeing 727 shattered on impact while attempting an emergency landing in a snowstorm in the country’s northwest, killing 77 people and injuring 27. The aircraft had taken off from Tehran with more than an hour’s delay due to bad weather and two previous flights had already been cancelled.
– 2009 –
On July 15, a Tupolev 154 jetliner operated by Caspian Airlines en route from Tehran to Yerevan in Armenia caught fire shortly after takeoff and crashed into a field in the northern region of Qazvin, killing all 168 passengers on board including 15 crew. Authorities said a technical problem was the cause of the crash.
– 2006 –
On November 26, an Iranian military plane crashed in Tehran, killing 39 people of which 30 were members of the Revolutionary Guard — the Islamic regime’s ideological army. The plane had been destined for Shiraz in the south but crashed on takeoff at Tehran’s Mehrabad airport.
In January the same year eight senior officers of the ground forces of the Revolutionary Guard and three crew members were killed when a military plane crashed in the northwest of the country.
On September 1, 29 people were killed when a Tupolev 154 crashed and burst into flames in Mashhad in the northeast after a tire blew up.The aircraft run by Iran Airtours skidded off the runway and crashed into fencing.
– 2005 –
On December 6, a military transport craft Lockheed C130 crashed at the foot of a 10-storey apartment building in a residential area of southern Tehran, killing 108 people including 68 journalists and photographers, and injuring more than 90. Among the victims, 14 people were killed on the ground. The plane had experienced engine trouble just after takeoff from Mehrabad.
– 2003 –
On February 19, an Ilyushin Il-76 belonging to the air army of the elite Revolutionary Guard crashed near Kerman in the southeast, killing all 275 people on board. The craft had disappeared from radar monitors an hour after takeoff from Zahedan Airport and following contact from the pilot to airport control in Kerman to warn them he wanted to land due to bad weather.
