Scuffles Broke out at Tehran Plane Crashes Site, 116 Killed

The Financial Times:

An Iranian military plane carrying at least 94 people burst into flames and smashed into a Tehran apartment block on Tuesday, killing all those on board and others on the ground, police and witnesses said.

Interior Ministry Spokesman Mojtaba Mirabdollahi told the ISNA students news agency the death toll was 116.

A government official estimated the apartment block housed about 250 people. An interior ministry spokesman said he could confirm six to 10 deaths among those on the ground.

A police spokesman told state radio all passengers and crew on board the C-130 transport were killed when it hit the building in densely populated southern Tehran.

The plane, which belonged to the Iranian air force, was bound for the southern port of Bandar Abbas and many of the passengers were local journalists who were going to cover military exercises in the Gulf.

The pilot had reported engine trouble and requested an emergency landing at Tehran’s Mehrabad international airport, but crashed just short of the runway, police said.

Iranian media quoted witnesses as saying one of the plane’s wings was on fire as it came down.

Iranian reporters and cameramen at the scene were weeping because they knew colleagues on board.

Reuters witnesses said the nose of the crashed aircraft had been completely destroyed while its fuselage was blackened by smoke. Flames licked out of the windows of the flats and thick black smoke billowed into the sky.

Schools were closed because of high smog levels, raising fears that more children than usual would have been at home when the plane crashed at 2.10 p.m. (10:40 a.m. British time). A policemen said he saw the burnt corpses of several young children.

“Some people were throwing themselves out of windows to escape the flames. I saw two die like that,” another policeman said.

SCUFFLES WITH POLICE

Passerby Hassan Hedayati, his face covered in dust and hands caked with dried blood, said he was among the first on the scene.

“I pulled 30 bodies out of the plane. They were all charred,” he said.

The apartment block, which was still standing, is in the Shahrak-e Towhid neighbourhood inhabited by members of the military and their families. It lies on the flightpath to Mehrabad airport.

Scuffles broke out as police cordoned off the area, trying to keep back hundreds of anxious residents trying to push past them. READ MORE

Emergency services were using helicopters, ambulances and buses to evacuate the dead and wounded. Bulldozers also arrived at the scene.

Iran has a poor airline safety record following a string of air disasters in the past 30 years although most have involved Russian-made aircraft.

U.S. sanctions have prevented Iran from buying new aircraft or spares from the West, forcing it to supplement its fleet of Boeing and Airbus planes with aircraft from former Soviet Union countries.

The C-130 Hercules aircraft, manufactured in the United States, are used in more than 60 nations for dropping paratroopers and supplies into war zones.

In Iran’s last major military air disaster, an Iranian Ilyushin-76 troop carrier crashed in the southeast of the country on February 19, 2003, killing all 276 Revolutionary Guard soldiers and crew aboard.