Military plane crashes in Iran

By Hiedeh Farmani in Tehran
December 07, 2005

Panic ... police try to disperse people near the crash site. AT least 116 people were killed overnight when an ageing Iranian military transport plane suffered engine failure and smashed into a densely populated area of Tehran, setting a high-rise block ablaze.

Official media said all 94 on board the C-130 - bought from the United States before the Islamic revolution nearly three decades ago - died in the crash at the foot of a high-rise housing block and domestic gas supply depot.

"The plane disintegrated and all the bodies are burned. A young girl jumped from the window because of the flames. Most of the victims on the ground are women and children who were at home," Lieutenant Nasser Sedigh-Nia, who witnessed the crash, said.

"The fuel tanks were full, which is why the explosion was so big," said the air force officer, one of many airport staff who live in the area. "Our C-130s are in a bad state because of the US sanctions: we can't get spare parts."

Among the dead passengers were 78 journalists, 40 of them from state television, the semi-official Fars news agency reported. They were flying to the southeastern port city of Charbahar to report on military exercises.

State radio said several army public relations officers were also on the plane.

In total 116 bodies have been recovered, interior ministry spokesman Mojtaba Mir-Abdolahi said. State television put the death toll, including the 94 passengers, at "around 110".
Dozens more people on the ground were reported injured, and anti-riot police were called in to beat away onlookers blamed for blocking access for emergency workers.

The four-engine plane encountered engine failure immediately after take-off from central Teheran's Mehrabad airport, state television said.

It tried to return for an emergency landing but went down close to the airport - which handles international, domestic and military flights - in the Yaftabad district in the working class south of the sprawling city, where visibility is very low due to a blanket of a thick brown-yellow smog.

"I saw the airplane. There was smoke coming out of one engine. It went into the ground very fast, very close to the building," said 30-year-old Mohammad Rasooli, a local resident.

"There was a huge explosion which engulfed the housing block."

A local police commander, Nasser Shabani, said many of the dead on the ground were trapped in the nine-storey building and suffocated from the smoke or were burned.

In a message carried by state media, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad offered his condolences.

"I learned of the catastrophe and the fact that members of the press have been martyred," said the president, currently on a visit to Saudi Arabia. "I offer my condolences to the supreme leader and to the families of the victims".

Iran's air force is believed to have no more than 15 of the US-made C-130s in operation. It bought the workhorses, also known as Hercules, before the 1979 Islamic revolution when Iran was ruled by the Washington-backed shah.

Since then, clerical-ruled Iran has been subject to tough US sanctions, hindering the purchase of critical spare parts for all US-made planes in its air force, civilian flag carrier Iran Air and domestic airlines.

A C-130 crashed near Teheran due to technical problems in June 2003, killing seven people. In February 2000 a C-130 crashed on take-off and collided with an Iran Air Airbus 300, killing 10 people.

And in 1997, a C-130 crashed near the northwestern city of Mashhad after encountering engine trouble, killing 86 people.

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