IRAN: All 270 people aboard an military plane are believed to have died when it crashed in southeastern Iran yesterday, state television reported.
State television said the plane, which was earlier reported to have been a passenger aircraft, crashed while travelling between the cities of Zahedan and Kerman.
All of those aboard were members of the Bassij militia of the elite Revolutionary Guards Corps, said Ali Moulavi Haqiqi, the bassij commander for Sistan-Baluchistan province, of which Zahedan is the capital. A senior source close to the government said some high-ranking military officials were among the fatalities.
A government official, who declined to be named, said the crash appeared to have been caused by bad weather.
He said the plane had gone down in a desert area about 80 km from Kerman, which lies 1,075 km southeast of Tehran.
State television had earlier reported that air traffic controllers lost contact with the plane at about 5.30 p.m. local time (2 p.m. Irish time).
There are conflicting reports as to the model of the aircraft, with some reports saying it was a Russian-made Antonov and others reporting it to be an Ilyushin.
An official said the forces had visited the impoverished Sistan-Baluchestan province, of which Zahedan is the capital, for an "important duty". The military corps is seen as a defender of Iran's Islamic regime.
Last year, all 119 people aboard an Iran Air Tours died when the Tupolev-154 aircraft crashed near the western city of Khorramabad.
Last December, a Ukrainian An-140 aircraft flew into a mountainside while preparing to land at an airport near the central Iranian city of Isfahan, killing all the estimated 46 scientists aboard.
In 1988, an Iran Air A-300 Airbus was shot down over the Gulf by the US warship Vincennes which wrongly identified it as an attacking fighter. All 290 people on board were killed.
Other crashes involving Russian-made aircraft includes a crash near the Siberian city of Irkutsk in July 2001 when 136 passengers and nine crew were killed after a Russian Tupolev-154 came down. In July last year a Bashkirian Airlines Tupolev 154 passenger plane carrying Russian children, collided with a German cargo Boeing 757 in southwestern Germany, killing 71, 52 of them children.