Tragedy in the air: 70 perish in Iran Air plane crash

Some 105 people were on board the plane which came down due to bad weather.

TEHRAN: An airliner with Iran Air crashed on Sunday near a northwestern city in bad weather and broke into pieces, killing at least 70 of the 105 people on board, state news agency IRNA reported.

“Based on information received so far, 70 people have been killed and 32 injured” in the crash, Heydar Heydari, deputy head of the Iranian Red Crescent, told Irna.

The Mehr news agency also quoting a medical official as reporting that 70 bodies had been transferred to local hospitals.

The plane with the Islamic republic’s national carrier crashed near the northwestern city of Orumiyeh at around 7:45 pm, an official in West Azerbaijan province said, quoted on state television’s website.

“The airplane took off an hour later than scheduled time from Tehran towards Orumiyeh and because of bad weather conditions came down in a village area near Orumiyeh,” the unidentified official said.

In an earlier report on Fars news agency, Iran’s head of emergency services Gholam Reza Masoumi said that “50 injured people out of the 105 on board have come out of the plane alive.”

The governor-general of West Azerbaijan, Vahid Jalalzadeh, told state television that “all the bodies and the injured have been transferred to different hospitals in the city” of Orumiyeh.

Giving sketchy details of the crash, Jalalzadeh said the pilot had lost contact with the airport before the airliner disappeared off the radar.

“Then the plane crashed near the village and villagers told the authorities about the crash site. Some passengers were able to get out of the plane themselves, and villagers took several passengers to hospitals,” he said.

An Iranian Red Crescent official told state television that the plane hit the ground and broke into pieces. “Thankfully there was no fire,” he said.

Iran Air spokesman Shahrokh Noushabadi said “we are examining the reason for the crash, but bad weather appears to be the main cause.”

Fars said 105 people were believed to have been on board, and Isna reported that the aircraft was a US-built Boeing 727. A third news agency, Ilna, gave a breakdown of 95 passengers and 10 crew members.

Masoumi said the rescue operation was being hampered by bad weather.

“The problem at the moment for rescue work is the heavy snow, which is around 70 centimetres deep around the crash site,” Fars quoted him as saying.

IRNA reported that bad weather around Orumiyeh had earlier led to the cancellation of two flights from Tehran on Sunday.

Iran, which has been under years of international sanctions, has suffered a number of aviation disasters over the past decade, several involving small companies using Russian crew or crews from former Soviet republics in Central Asia.

The country’s civil and military fleet is made up of ancient aircraft in very poor condition because of their age and lack of maintenance.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 10^th, 2011.