By Associated Press
TEHRAN, Iran--A regional passenger plane assembled in Iran
crashed Sunday while taking off from the country's capital, Tehran,
killing 39 and injuring another nine on board, according to a
senior transportation official and state media.
Deputy Minister of Transportation Ahmad Majidi provided the
latest casualty figures in an appearance on state television. The
channel earlier reported that all 48 people on board had died.
The aircraft, an Iran-140, typically used for short domestic
flights, crashed near Tehran's Mehrabad airport. The plane went
down in a residential area after one of its engines went out,
Iran's state-run IRNA news agency reported.
The plane was operated by Sepahan Air and was heading to Tabas,
a town in eastern Iran. It took off at 9:20 a.m. local time and
crashed shortly afterward.
State TV said the bodies of some of the victims were so badly
burned that they couldn't be identified. They will be handed over
to relatives after DNA tests are carried out to determine their
identities, it said.
Members of the Revolutionary Guard worked to secure the crash
site and security and rescue personnel combed the wreckage as
onlookers gathered shortly after the plane went down. The plane's
mangled but largely intact tail section was torn from the fuselage
and came to rest on a nearby road.
The Iran-140 is a twin-engine turboprop plane based on Ukrainian
technology that is assembled under license in Iran. It is a version
of the Antonov An-140 regional plane and can carry up to 52
passengers.
Mehrabad, located in western Tehran, is the busier of two main
airports serving the capital, and primarily handles domestic
flights. Most international flights use the newer Imam Khomeini
International Airport.
Iran has suffered a series of airplane crashes, blamed on its
aging aircraft and poor maintenance. Many of the Boeing aircraft in
state-run Iran Air's fleet were bought before the country's 1979
Islamic Revolution, which disrupted ties with the U.S. and
Europe.
Iranian airlines, including those run by the state, are
chronically strapped for cash, and maintenance has suffered,
experts say. U.S. sanctions prevent Iran from updating its American
aircraft and make it difficult to get European spare parts or
planes as well. The country has come to rely on Russian aircraft,
many of them Soviet-era planes that are harder to get parts for
since the Soviet Union's fall.
In March of this year, a small plane belonging to the State
Aviation Organization crashed while on a test flight near the
tourist resort of Kish Island, killing all four crew members.
The last major airliner crash in Iran happened in January 2011,
when an Iran Air Boeing 727 broke to pieces on impact while trying
an emergency landing in a snowstorm in northwestern Iran, killing
at least 77 people.
In July 2009, a Russian-made jetliner crashed in northwest Iran
shortly after taking off from the capital, killing all 168 on
board. A Russian-made Ilyushin 76 carrying members of the
Revolutionary Guard crashed in the mountains of southeastern Iran
in February 2003, killing 302 people aboard.
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