All 65 on board feared dead in Iran plane crash

Tehran, February 18

All 65 persons on board an Iranian passenger plane were feared dead today after it crashed into the country’s Zagros mountains, with emergency services struggling to locate the wreckage in blizzard conditions.

Aseman Airlines flight EP3704 left Tehran for the city of Yasuj, some 500 km to the south, the airlines public relations chief Mohammad Tabatabai said. The ATR-72 twin-engine plane, in service since 1993, disappeared from radar around 45 minutes after takeoff from the capital’s Mehrabad airport.

The plane was carrying 60 passengers, including one child, as well as six crew members, Tabatabai said inititally, but it was later confirmed that one passenger had missed the flight.

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Emergency services were yet to find the precise location of the crash as emergency teams battled severe weather.

President Hassan Rouhani ordered the transport ministry to set up a crisis group to investigate the crash and coordinate rescue efforts.

Decades of international sanctions have left Iran’s airlines with an ageing fleets of passenger planes which they have struggled to maintain and modernise.

Aseman’s three Boeing 727-200s are almost as old as the country’s 1979 Islamic revolution, having made their first flights the following year. Iran has suffered multiple aviation disasters, most recently in 2014 when a Sepahan Airlines plane crashed killing 39 persons just after takeoff from Tehran, narrowly avoiding many more deaths when it plummeted near a busy market.

Meanwhile, Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu offered his condolences over the deaths, moments after he launched a blistering attack on Tehran as tension between the arch enemies reached new heights over Iran’s activities in Syria. — Agencies