Posted on 02/12/2002 6:55:50 AM PST by erikm88
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — An Iranian passenger plane carrying at least 118 people crashed Tuesday in the snowy mountains of western Iran near Khorramabad, officials said.
No details on the number injured or killed were immediately available, nor was there information on the cause of the crash.
Search teams were sent to the site, said Reza Jaafarzadeh, a spokesman for the Civil Aviation Organization of Iran. But they were having difficulty reaching the crash scene due to heavy snow in the Sefid Kouh mountains, the organization said in a statement.
An official in Khorramabad, identified by state television only as Manzari, said search teams that had neared the site had found one of the plane's tires.
Government spokesman Abdullah Ramezanzadeh told the official Islamic Republic News Agency that 105 passengers and 13 crew members were aboard Flight 956. Earlier, Jaafarzadeh told The Associated Press that at least 117 passenger and crew were on board.
Iranian television reported that the plane crashed into the Sefid Kouh mountains, 15 miles west of Khorramabad.
The Tu-154, a Russian-made Tupolev operated by state-owned Iran Air Tours, left Tehran at 7:30 a.m. headed for Khorramabad, about 230 miles southwest of the capital, state radio reported.
Residents of a village near Khorramabad heard a ``big explosion'' and fire after the Tupolev went down, the radio said.
By midday, dozens of relatives of the passengers had gathered at Tehran's Mehrabad Airport, weeping as they sought information on the fate of loved ones.
``Where are you? What happened to you?'' shouted Nasrin Shafiiyan, crying and beating her face and chest, as she waited for information about the fate of her husband Houshang, who was on the plane.
She said that the crash was the fault of ``the stupid incompetent officials who go and collect second-hand ... planes from all over the former Soviet countries. What is this garbage they buy or rent?''
The television reported that President Mohammad Khatami ordered the formation of an emergency committee to investigate the cause of the crash. A team of experts from the Transportation Ministry was heading to Khorramabad, it said.
Minutes before crashing, the plane lost contact with the control tower at Khorramabad airport, the television said.
Iran Air Tours, a subsidiary of state carrier Iran Air, in recent years has leased mostly Russian-made Tupolev planes with Russian crew.
A Russian-built aircraft, a Yak-40 operated by the private Faraz Qeshm Airlines crashed in northeastern Iran in May, killing the transport minister and about 30 other passengers including seven lawmakers. They were on their way to Gorgan, near the Caspian Sea, to inaugurate that city's airport.
Iran also has an aging fleet of U.S.-made Boeings purchased before the 1979 Islamic revolution. The United States has refused to provide spare parts for Boeing planes as part of its wide-ranging economic sanctions against Iran.
Iran has said the U.S. stance on spare parts endangered the lives of innocent passengers.
In recent years, Iran has purchased a small number of Airbus passenger planes.
On July 3, a Tu-154 slammed into a Siberian meadow, killing all 145 people aboard. That crash was the 20th involving a Tu-154 since it entered service in the early 1970s. With some 1,000 planes built, it is the most widely used jetliner in Russia and is used in many other countries.
In February 1993 a Russian-made Tu-134 on lease to Iran collided with a military plane near Tehran, killing all 132 people on board
Well it looks like some of those who "celebrated the deaths of our innocent citizens on 9/11" were on that plane...
At least we now know what Bridgestone/Firestone did with all those recalled SUV tires.
Now THAT is funny! DAMN...
Really? Got names?
Under US sanctions, Iran has had difficulty obtaining spare parts for its ageing fleet of Boeing aircraft purchased before the 1979 Islamic revolution and relies increasingly on planes leased from the former Soviet Union.
Iran has said the US stance on spare parts endangers the lives of innocent passengers.
Figures... I KNEW it...
Sorry for jumping the gun on your comment.
I bet you hope that there were lots of kids on the plane. You know, it's more efficient to thin 'em before they even breed. Can you make those ridiculous sounds like the famous Arab lady in the street?
Leni
Iran-Plane-Crash /GNR/
Lawmakers call for minister's resignation following plane crash Tehran, Feb 12, IRNA -- Several MPs have called for the resignation or impeachment of Iran's Transport Minister, Ahmad Khorram, following a plane crash with 117 aboard in a mountainous region near the western city of Khorramabad early Tuesday morning.
The Iranian Civil Aviation Organization (CAO) has confirmed the crash, but there is no official word yet on the cause of the crash and probable casualties.
The Russian-made Tupolev-154 owned by the Iran Air Tours which is an affiliate of the national flag-carrier Iran Air, disappeared from radar screens almost an hour after taking off from Mehrabad International Airport at 06:30 (0300 GMT), the head of the public relations office of the CAO, Reza Ja'farzadeh, said. "In Kuwait, an oil well gets fire and four people are burnt, its oil minister resigns after taking responsibility for that. In Iran, many planes crash and nobody feels accountable," the MP from western Islamabad-e Gharb, Aazam Nasseri-Pour said.
Another MP from Sepidan, Gholamreza Barzgar, said call for Khorram's impeachment had mounted in the parliament, while his colleague, Mohammad Saqqai criticized the head of the Civil Aviation Organization, Behzad Mazaheri, saying he was incompetent for his post. The Chequini district governor, Ali Biranvand, said that part of the debris, belonging to the crashed plane, had been found in the Sefidkouh mountains. "The plane crashed in Sefidkouh mountains after striking the Galich valley," he said, adding, "So far, parts of the plane, including its wheels and several seats, have been found. "The crash of the plane was reported by several miners who were working near Galich valley," the official said.
Efforts to reach the crash site have been hampered because of the area being inaccessible, Biranvand said, adding the provincial governor office had asked for helicopters to be sent for the search operations.
According to the CAO officials, the plane lost radio contact with Khorramabad airport where it was heading minutes before the crash and efforts to reestablish contact were of no avail. A search team has been formed and dispatched to the crash site by the CAO, they added.
Ja'farzadeh put the number of those on board at 117, but government spokesman Abdollah Ramezanzadeh has said 118 were aboard the plane, with 105 passengers and the rest crew.
Meanwhile, President Mohammad Khatami has ordered a special task force to be formed at the CAO to look into the crash incident, said government spokesman Ramezanzadeh.
"According to an order issued by the president, all organizations and related bodies are obliged to cooperate with this team," he said, adding the cause of the crash is under investigation.
The wreckage of the plane, Ramezanzadeh said, has been found in the Darreh Sarab region, near Khorramabad which is located 400 km southwest of Tehran in Lorestan province.
BH/AH
End
::irna 17:52
Iran has said the U.S. stance on spare parts endangered the lives of innocent passengers.
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