More than 100 killed in Iran plane crash – UPDATE 2

Iran Focus: Tehran, Iran, Dec. 06 – All 94 passengers on board an Iranian military plane which crashed south of Tehran Tuesday afternoon have died, according to state radio which also said that at least 25 people on the ground were also killed. Iran Focus

Tehran, Iran, Dec. 06 – All 94 passengers on board an Iranian military plane which crashed south of Tehran Tuesday afternoon have died, according to state radio which also said that at least 25 people on the ground were also killed.

The C-130 transport plane which was travelling from Tehran to the southern port city of Bandar Abbas attempted to make an emergency landing in Tehran’s Mehrabad airport but failed to do so successfully.

State television said that it crashed in Yaft-Abad, a residential district of the Iranian capital. It burst into flames at 13:45 Tehran time as it smashed into a 10-story building, which housed dozens of residential apartments.

The Fars news agency, close to the office of Iran’s Supreme Leader, put the number of passengers on board at 106, while the state-run IRNA news agency reported it at 94.

The state-run Mehr news agency reported that a number of Iranian journalists including those from the state television and radio broadcasting corporation IRIB, as well as the state-run IRNA, ISNA, and Fars news agencies who were planning to cover Navy manoeuvres in the south of the country were aboard the plane and died in the crash.

Several fire engines are at the crash site, ISNA said, while Tehran radio confirmed that 25 people on the ground were killed and another 10 were left injured.

On February 19, 2003, a military aircraft crashed in southeast Iran, killing 276 Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) soldiers on board.