TEHRAN, Iran — A Ukrainian airplane carrying a minimum of 170 individuals crashed Wednesday shortly after takeoff from Tehran’s fundamental airport, state TV reported, and an Iranian emergency official says the crash has killed all these on board the industrial airliner that took off from Tehran.
Pir Hossein Kulivand made the remark Wednesday morning after the crash. He mentioned rescuers had been making an attempt to gather the lifeless. The airplane went down in farmland outdoors of Iran’s capital, Tehran. Authorities initially blamed a mechanical downside for the crash.
The airplane had taken off from Imam Khomeini International Airport.
An investigation workforce was on the web site of the crash in southwestern outskirts of Tehran, civil aviation spokesman Reza Jafarzadeh mentioned.
“After taking off from Imam Khomeini International Airport, it crashed between Parand and Shahriar,” Jafarzadeh mentioned. “An investigation team from the national aviation department was dispatched to the location after the news was announced.”
State TV earlier mentioned there have been 180 passengers and crew aboard. The discrepancy couldn’t be instantly reconciled.
Flight information from the airport confirmed a Ukrainian 737-800 flown by Ukraine International Airlines took off Wednesday morning, then stopped sending information nearly instantly afterward, in keeping with web site FlightRadar24. The airline didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.
A photograph later printed by Iran’s state-run IRNA information company confirmed rescue officers in a farm discipline, with what seemed to be items of the plane laying close by.
The crash got here hours after Iran launched a ballistic missile assault concentrating on two bases in Iraq housing U.S. forces in retaliation for the killing of Revolutionary Guard Gen. Qassem Soleimani.
The Boeing 737-800 is a quite common single-aisle, twin-engine jetliner used for brief to medium-range flights. Thousands of the planes are utilized by airways all over the world.
Introduced within the late 1990s, it’s an older mannequin than the Boeing 737 MAX, which has been grounded for almost 10 months following two lethal crashes.
Numerous 737-800 plane have been concerned in lethal accidents through the years.
In March 2016, a FlyDubai 737-800 from Dubai crashed whereas making an attempt to land at Rostov-on-Don airport in Russia, killing 62 onboard. Another 737-800 flight from Dubai, operated by Air India Express, crashed in May 2010 whereas making an attempt to land in Mangalore, India, killing greater than 150 onboard.
Chicago-based Boeing Co. was “aware of the media reports out of Iran and we are gathering more information,” spokesman Michael Friedman advised The Associated Press.
Boeing, like different airline producers, sometimes assists in crash investigations. However, that effort on this case might be affected by the U.S. sanctions marketing campaign in place on Iran since President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew from Tehran’s nuclear take care of world powers in May 2018.
Both Airbus and Boeing had been in line to promote billions of {dollars} of plane to Iran over the deal, which noticed Tehran restrict its enrichment of uranium in trade for the lifting of financial sanctions. But Trump’s resolution halted the gross sales.
Under a long time of worldwide sanctions, Iran’s industrial passenger plane fleet has aged, with air accidents occurring usually for home carriers in recent times, leading to lots of of casualties.
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Gambrell reported from Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Associated Press writers Adam Schreck in Bangkok and Mehdi Fattahi in Tehran contributed to this report.