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Iranian Passenger Plane Crashes
AP newswire ^ | 2/12/02 | AFSHIN VALINEJAD

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


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To: erikm88
I hope the survivors are ok. As much distaste that I have for their leaders and religion, I hope the people are ok.
61 posted on 02/12/2002 8:02:54 AM PST by Centurion2000
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To: kinghorse
I am proud of or non-PC government and the tactics they are most likely contemplating to get these radicals to wipe the froth from their ugly mouths.

But, are you proud to have become, just like those that cheered the innocent deaths on Sept 11th? By cheering this plane crash you have become just like those you detest. Cheering the loss of innocent lives. Just as the people in the towers had nothing to do with foreign policy, the people in this plane were not the ones that flew planes into the towers.

I now return you to your confetti throwing party....

62 posted on 02/12/2002 8:08:46 AM PST by ET(end tyranny)
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To: newsperson999
The Iranians held a minutes silence for the dead on the 11th September. There was no rejoicing in the streets.
63 posted on 02/12/2002 8:10:09 AM PST by Tanya Featherstonehaugh
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To: ET(end tyranny)
But, are you proud to have become, just like those that cheered the innocent deaths on Sept 11th? By cheering this plane crash you have become just like those you detest.

Yes, yes. And by bombing "innocent afghanis" for sept 11th we are a terrorist, too, blah blah blah. *yawn*.

Just as the people in the towers had nothing to do with foreign policy, the people in this plane were not the ones that flew planes into the towers.

Oh, really? Didn't bin Laden say in an interview that since USA is a democracy, then ALL of its citizens (women + children included) are responsible for what US does?

64 posted on 02/12/2002 8:17:05 AM PST by BrooklynGOP
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To: Tanya Featherstonehaugh
The Iranians held a minutes silence for the dead on the 11th September. There was no rejoicing in the streets.

They did this out of fear not compassion. The world was running for the hills out of fear of what the US response would be.

65 posted on 02/12/2002 8:17:37 AM PST by kinghorse
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To: Loopy
i did not wish it, it happened i'm not afraid to say i could care less. you can sympathize with the enemy and be liberal compassionate for these middle eastern animals but i 'm not. and i'm not sick today i feel great and i'm on high alert...........ta ta..............
66 posted on 02/12/2002 8:19:15 AM PST by angcat
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To: BrooklynGOP
Are you comparing your thought pattern with that of bin Laden, and saying its okay to think like him?
67 posted on 02/12/2002 8:21:14 AM PST by ET(end tyranny)
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To: kinghorse
Maybe, maybe not.

Fear didn't seem to stop certain other countries from cheering, I thought the Iranians seemed pretty upfront at the time: the ordinary people, anyway.

68 posted on 02/12/2002 8:21:41 AM PST by Tanya Featherstonehaugh
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To: ET(end tyranny)
Nope, I was merely presenting you with facts about the man. And he is their hero.
69 posted on 02/12/2002 8:23:20 AM PST by BrooklynGOP
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To: angcat
You have the B*lls to call someone else an animal. I suppose you think you are a christian too. Sicko.
70 posted on 02/12/2002 8:25:34 AM PST by Loopy
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To: BrooklynGOP
You used his thoughts to justify your own!
71 posted on 02/12/2002 8:28:02 AM PST by ET(end tyranny)
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To: erikm88
The JEWS did it! </ sarcasm>
72 posted on 02/12/2002 8:31:37 AM PST by montag813
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To: ET(end tyranny)
Really? How did I do that? Please show us.
73 posted on 02/12/2002 8:37:40 AM PST by BrooklynGOP
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To: Chad Fairbanks
Actually, we have shot down one of their civilian airplanes once before.
74 posted on 02/12/2002 8:38:29 AM PST by conserv13
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To: Tanya Featherstonehaugh
The Iranians held a minutes silence for the dead on the 11th September. There was no rejoicing in the streets.

Yeah, and Yasser Arafat gave blood.

I was so touched. (/sarcasm)

75 posted on 02/12/2002 8:39:56 AM PST by Catspaw
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To: erikm88
OK. I ain't sayin' it, but I sure did think it. I know it's wrong, but I can't help my gut reactions. I'll go do pennance now.
76 posted on 02/12/2002 8:40:40 AM PST by lds23
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To: BrooklynGOP
Your post #64, where you try and use bin laden's words to justify your thoughts that all Iranians are responsible for their government. Just as bin laden's thinking was flawed, so is yours.
77 posted on 02/12/2002 8:47:56 AM PST by ET(end tyranny)
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To: ET(end tyranny)
Justifying my thoughts? What are you talking about. I re stated what bin Laden said. bin Laden happens to be the hero of the muslim world. That's their hero, not mine. The problem with people like you, is that you are trying to equate everybody to americans and the way we think, when that is NOT the case.
78 posted on 02/12/2002 8:56:30 AM PST by BrooklynGOP
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Comment #79 Removed by Moderator

To: BrooklynGOP
Whatever you say. Fortunately your words are here for all to see through.

Bye.

80 posted on 02/12/2002 9:01:29 AM PST by ET(end tyranny)
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