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Tehran: Seventy-two
people, including 12 crew members, were killed when a plane with
105 people on board crashed in northwest Iran.
The remaining 33 people were seriously injured in the accident
that occurred Sunday evening in Iran's West Azerbaijan province,
Xinhua said, citing reports from the semi-official Fars news
agency.
The Boeing-727, belonging to the state-owned Iran-Air airline, had
been delayed twice due to bad weather in Tehran, which saw brief
snow Sunday morning.
The plane took off from Tehran's Mehrabad airport at 18.00 local
time (1230 GMT) and was about to arrive at the city of Urumieh at
19.45. But it crashed near a village some 15 km from Urumieh
minutes before landing, the governor of West Azerbaijan told
Iranian state broadcaster IRINN TV.
"Ten minutes before the plane arrived at the Urumieh airport, the
pilot informed the airport control tower that it cannot land due
to the bad whether condition ... and after that it disappeared
from the radar," the governor, Jalalzadeh, said.
However, another report by Mehr news agency quoted the political
deputy of West Azerbaijan governor, Ebrahim Fathollahi, as saying
that in his last conversation with the control tower, the pilot
said his plane had a technical problem.
Iran has been struck by several air disasters in recent years. In
July 2009, a Caspian Airlines plane crashed near the northwestern
city of Qazvin, killing all 168 people on board.
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