AN IRANIAN passenger aircraft flying from Tehran to the Armenian capital Yerevan crashed yesterday with the loss of all 168 passengers and crew on board.
Iran’s Civil Aviation Organisation said it was looking into the causes of the incident, but it did not give any indication of possible mechanical problems. There were no reports of sabotage regarding the crash.
The aircraft, a Russian-built Tupolev, belonged to the semi-private Caspian Airlines. It took off at 11.33am local time from Imam Khomeini airport and crashed 16 minutes later near a village in Qazvin province, northwest of Tehran. Footage on Iran’s state television showed small pieces of the aircraft scattered across farmland, while the tail remained as a large chunk.
Iran’s national youth judo team, which had been set to take part in the World Cup next month in Hungary, was on board, along with a number of Iranian Armenians, a minority group in Iran.
Ahmad Momeni, managing director of the state airports company, said the pilot had not reported any technical problems.
“We have to review all issues including those related to the cockpit to see what happened in the last moments before the crash,” he said.
However, semi-official news agency Ilna quoted witnesses as saying that the tail of the aircraft was on fire before the crash occurred, indicating that technical reasons could have caused the disaster. Iran’s worst crash took place in 2003 when 302 passengers and crew died after a Russian-built Ilyushin aircraft crashed in the southeast of the country.
There was another crash in December 2005, in which more than 100 people died.
Iran is subject to US sanctions banning the importation of any goods that could also be used for the country’s missile and nuclear programmes, and these measures affect civilian aircraft.
The International Civil Aviation Organisation, the worldwide aviation watchdog, has warned that the sanctions are placing civilian lives at risk.
Iranian airlines usually refrain from linking such incidents to the US sanctions, which have been imposed since the early 1990s.
Instead, they defend their safety record in order to avoid a drop in seat sales. However, aviation experts in Iran blame the sanctions on the civilian air fleet as the main reason for crashes.
US firms are barred from providing Iran’s airliners with spare parts, while engines sent to other countries from Iran for repair could be seized. The restrictions also apply to navigation instruments. – (Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009)