A Russian-made Iranian passenger plane carrying 157 passengers and 13 crew crash landed in northeastern Iran yesterday injuring at least 46 people, state television reported.
The broadcast quoted Iran’s civil aviation spokesman, Reza Jafarzadeh, as saying that no one was killed in the accident. He gave no indication of what might have caused the accident.
The Taban Air plane caught fire upon landing at Mashhad airport at 7:20am. The injured have been taken to hospitals in Mashhad, the report said.
PHOTO: REUTERS
Jafarzadeh said the Tupolev plane initially took off from Abadan airport in southwestern Iran on Saturday evening but landed in Isfahan because of bad weather in Mashhad, its destination.
“The plane took off from Isfahan airport at 5:35am local time Sunday ... Despite bad weather and minimum visibility, the pilot made an emergency landing because a passenger was ill. But the incident then happened during landing,” he said.
An unnamed informed source told Fars news agency that the accident occurred as the Russian pilot landed the plane in the fog and its tail hit the ground and broke up.
Mohsen Esmaili, manager of Mashhad airport told Mehr news agency, that the pilot landed the plane in fog “despite repeated warnings from the control tower, saying he had a sick patient on board.”
Jafarzadeh said the plane was seriously damaged. State television added that part of the aircraft had burned and the left wing and undercarriage were torn off.
Iran has about a dozen Soviet-built Tupolev airliners.
Iran, which has been under years of international sanctions, has suffered a number of aviation disasters over the past decade, several of them involving small companies using Russian crew or crews from former Soviet republics of Central Asia.
Iran’s civil and military fleet is made up of ancient aircraft in very poor condition due to their age and lack of maintenance. Iranian airlines are chronically cashed-strapped and cannot buy new planes.
Iranian officials often blame US sanctions that prevent it from refurbishing the US aircraft bought before the 1979 Islamic revolution and also make it difficult to get spare parts or planes from Europe.
The country has come to rely on Russian aircraft, many of them Soviet-era planes that are harder to get parts for since the fall of the Soviet Union.
In its worst air accident, a plane carrying members of the elite Revolutionary Guards crashed in February 2003, killing 302 people on board.
In February 2006, another Tu-154 operated by Iran Airtour, which is affiliated with Iran’s national carrier, crashed during landing in Tehran, killing 29 of the 148 people on board.
Last July, a Tupolev passenger plane carrying 168 people crashed shortly after takeoff, nose-diving into a field and killing all those aboard.
The Caspian Airlines Tu-154M jet had taken off from Tehran’s Imam Khomeini International Airport and was headed to the Armenian capital Yerevan.
An American scientist convicted of lying to US authorities about payments from China while he was at Harvard University has rebuilt his research lab in Shenzhen, China, to pursue technology the Chinese government has identified as a national priority: embedding electronics into the human brain. Charles Lieber, 67, is among the world’s leading researchers in brain-computer interfaces. The technology has shown promise in treating conditions such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and restoring movement in paralyzed people. It also has potential military applications: Scientists at the Chinese People’s Liberation Army have investigated brain interfaces as a way to engineer super soldiers by boosting
Indonesian police have arrested 13 people after shocking images of alleged abuse against small children at a daycare center went viral, sparking outrage across the nation, officials said on Monday. Police on Friday last week raided Little Aresha, a daycare center in Yogyakarta on Java island, following a report from a former employee. CCTV footage circulating on social media showed children, most younger than two, lying on the floor wearing only diapers, their hands and feet bound with rags. The police have confirmed that the footage is authentic. Police said they also found 20 children crammed into a room just 3m by 3m. “So
From post offices and parks to stations and even the summit of Mount Fuji, Japan’s vending machines are ubiquitous, but with the rapid pace of inflation cooling demand for their drinks, operators are being forced to rethink the business. Last month beverage giant DyDo Group Holdings announced it would remove about 20,000 vending machines — about 7 percent of their stock nationwide — by January next year, to “reconstruct a profitable network.” Pokka Sapporo Food & Beverage, based in Nagoya, also said last month it would sell its 40,000-machine operation to Osaka-based Lifedrink Co. “The strength of the vending machine
A highway bomb attack in a restive region of southwestern Colombia on Saturday killed 14 people and injured at least 38, the latest spate of violence ahead of next month’s presidential election. Authorities blamed the attack in the Cauca department — a conflict-ridden, coca-growing region — on dissidents of the now-disbanded FARC guerrilla army, who have been sowing violence across the country. “Those who carried out this attack ... are terrorists, fascists and drug traffickers,” Colombian President Gustavo Petro said on social media. “I want our very best soldiers to confront them,” he added. The leftist leader blamed the bombing
RSS