Published on : Monday, August 11, 2014
Sepahan Airlines Flight 5915, a locally built Iranian passenger plane, carrying 40 passengers crashed in a residential area north-west of Tehran near Mehrabad Airport. The plane crashed at 9:18am local time reviving questions about the safety of a cash-strapped aviation sector left hobbled by international sanctions.
Earlier there were reports that there were no survivors and 40 people on board were presumed to have been killed in the crash. But the latest reports suggest that 37 people died in the crash, two more died at a Tehran hospital and nine others were in critical condition with serious burns according to local news sources.
President Hassan Rouhani offered his condolences to victims’ families and quickly ordered an investigation into the crash. Similar planes operated by Iranian carriers will be grounded until the probe is complete, he directed.
Mehrabad Airport is near central Tehran and is Iran’s main domestic hub and by far the busiest of the country’s airports, serving routes to all Iranian cities. It crashed into the Azadi neighbourhood, just west of central Teheran, close to a residential area for military families.
Most international flights take off from Teheran Imam Khomeini International Airport, which is located further west of the Iranian capital.
The plane was headed to the eastern city of Tabas, the IRNA and Fars news agencies said, when it crashed around 9.18 am (0448 GMT), after leaving Mehrabad airport. It was a turboprop aircraft An-140.
Iran’s deputy transport minister Ahmad Majidi said the Antonov An-140 turboprop plane was run by Sepahan Airlines The plane was based on a relatively obscure Ukrainian design that has been involved in previous Iranian air disasters. Due to the sanctions imposed on it by the West, that prohibit international companies to supply the aircraft and spare parts to the Islamic Republic, Iran has developed its own passenger aircraft. In 2000, Iran bought a license for the production of the An-140 from Ukraine, on the basis of which in 2003 it has created the first Iranian passenger plane – Iran-140, that can carry for up to 52 passengers.
As the plane crashed into trees it’s not expected that anyone on the ground got injured.
Tags: Iranian domestic flight
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