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Technical problem seen behind Iran plane crash

AFP - Friday, July 17

TEHRAN (AFP) - - A technical problem is believed to have caused the crash of an Iranian airliner which burst into flames and plunged into farmland, killing all 168 people on board, a top official said on Thursday.

"The pilot could probably not be blamed for this crash and we think it was likely due to a technical problem," Ahmad Majidi, head of the transport ministry's crisis unit, was quoted as saying by the Mehr news agency.

Iranian officials said three black boxes from the Russian-built Tupolev airliner have also been found, but that two were seriously damaged.

"Because of the severity of the accident two systems linked with the black box have been damaged in such a way that the tapes have come out of the boxes and scattered on the ground," Majidi said.

The plane caught fire in mid-air en route to Armenia and plunged into farmland outside a village in northwest Iran on Wednesday just 16 minutes after take-off, killing all 153 passengers and 15 crew members on board.

A religious service was held at the crash site on Thursday, with local officials and Archbishop Sebo Sarkissian of Iran's 300,000-strong Armenian community offering condolences to victims' families, an AFP photographer said.

The mourners gathered around the crater created by the plane crash, as three black boxes adorned with crosses were carried around the site.

Five Russian experts are due in Tehran on Friday to probe the cause of the crash of the Caspian Airlines Tupolev-154, news agencies reported.

The plane had undergone a safety check in Russia last month and received a flight licence until 2010, Majidi said.

An Armenian aviation official said Thursday the plane had gone through technical control in Mineralnye Vody airport in southern Russia in June.

But the airport chief Iouri Samossnov could not confirm the information. "I am not in a position to say if it was with us for maintenance," he was quoted as saying by Ria Novosti news agency.

Witnesses said the plane was ablaze before it smashed into the ground and exploded near the city of Qazvin. Television images showed a vast smoking crater littered with debris of plane parts, shoes and clothes.

"There is not a single piece which can be identified. There is not a single finger of anybody left," one relief worker told an AFP reporter at the site.

The head of the Qazvin disaster management centre, Mohammad Ali Ahani, said the remains of the victims had been transferred to Tehran.

"The families of the victims can inquire about their lost ones at the Tehran coroner's office, but it is impossible to identify the victims," he told Mehr news agency.

In Yerevan, the deputy head of the Armenian civil aviation organisation, Arsen Pogossian, said the pilot had attempted an emergency landing after an engine caught fire.

He said 147 passengers were Iranian, of whom 31 were of Armenian origin, four were Armenians and two Georgians.

Iranian officials said 10 members of the junior national judo team were also among those killed.

In Sydney, officials said an Australian brother and sister, aged in their 20s, who possibly had dual nationality, were among the dead.

Witnesses spoke of seeing the plane on fire before it plunged to earth.

"I saw the plane when it was just ... above the ground. Its wheels were out and there was fire blazing from the lower parts," witness Ablolfazl Idaji told Fars news agency.

"It seemed the pilot was trying to land and moments later the plane hit the ground and broke into pieces that were scattered far and wide."

The plane is a Soviet-designed medium-range three-engine aircraft and was a best-seller for the Russian aircraft industry between 1972 and 1994.

Iran, which has been under years of international sanctions hampering its ability to buy modern Boeing or Airbus planes, has suffered a number of aviation disasters over the past decade.

Its civil and military fleet is made up of ancient aircraft in very poor condition due to their age and lack of maintenance.

In the most deadly previous crash, 117 people on board another Tupolev were killed when it crashed into snow-covered mountains in western Iran in 2002.

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