TEHRAN: Ukraine Airlines plane suffering technical difficulties has crashed near Tehran airport, all 176 people on board were killed, Iran’s Red Crescent said.
It slammed into farmland at Khalaj Abad, in Shahriar county, about 45 kilometres (30 miles) northwest of the airport, according to reports on state media.
“Obviously it is impossible that passengers” on flight PS-752 are alive, Red Crescent head Morteza Salimi told media.
“Out of the 176 people who died, nine were flight crew members and the others passengers,” Mohammad Taghizadeh, the deputy governor for Tehran province, said, adding seventy were men, 81 women and 15 children.
“There are currently 500 medical units on the scene” gathering bodies, he added.
The Airliner took off at 6.12 am local time from Iran’s Imam Khomeini airport with 180 passengers and crew aboard and crashed soon after its take-off from , the semi-official Fars news agency tweeted on Wednesday.
The passenger plane Boeing 737-800 was bound for the Ukrainian capital Kiev.
Early indications suggested the crash did not appear to have links to Wednesday morning’s missile strikes on bases in Iraq hosting US and coalition troops.
Boeing released a brief statement saying it was aware of the media reports and was gathering more information.
No significant safety issues have been raised with the 737-800, though it belongs to the same family as the 737 Max 8 aircraft, which has been grounded since suffering two fatal crashes within six months in Indonesia and Ethiopia. However, the 737-800 operates with a different software system to the one implicated in the Max 8 crashes. The Ukraine International Airlines jet was less than four years old.
Most passengers on board the Ukraine Airliner died, said Pirhossein Koulivand, head of Iran’s Emegency Medical Services.
Emergency crews have been dispatched to the crash site but cannot assist because the area is currently ablaze, Koulivand said on IRINN, a state-run media outlet.
Flight-tracking service FlightRadar 24 said in a tweet that the jet had been in service for about three and half years.
The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said Tuesday it was banning US-registered carriers from flying over Iraq, Iran and the Gulf following rocket attacks on US forces in Iraq.
“The (FAA) issues Notices to Airmen tonight outlining flight restrictions that prohibit US civil aviation operators from operating in the airspace over Iraq, Iran and the waters of the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman,” it said in a statement. “The FAA will continue closely monitoring events in the Middle East.”
Military jets could be seen flying over the Iraqi capital early Wednesday, hours after Tehran launched more than a dozen ballistic missiles at Iraqi bases where US troops are located.
Jets cutting through the clouds over Baghdad were seen by people but could not immediately identify the planes. Iran´s strikes came in response to a US drone attack last week that killed top Iranian general Qasem Soleimani and Iraqi commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis.
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