WAVE 3 TV Louisville, KY | Plane Crashes During Landing In Iran, Killing 80

Plane Crashes During Landing In Iran, Killing 80

(TEHRAN, Iran) -- A jetliner blew a tire, skidded off a runway and caught fire while landing in northeastern Iran on Friday, killing up to 80 of the 147 passengers aboard, Iranian state TV
reported.

Rescue workers carried bodies on stretchers from the charred central portion of the Russian-made Tupolev 154, according to video broadcast from Mashhad's airport. The fire appeared to be out and firefighters sprayed the engines with hoses. Dozens of blanket-covered bodies lay on the ground nearby.

State TV said that the death toll was between 70 and 80 and that 50-60 passengers were evacuated from the aircraft, some with minor injuries.

No crew members were killed, state TV reported.

The Iran Airtour flight to Mashhad originated in Bandar Abbas, in southern Iran. The airline is affiliated with Iran's national air carrier.

A spokesman for Iran's Civil Aviation Organization, Reza Jafarzadeh, told The Associated Press that the death toll and the cause of the incident were not yet clear.

Iran Air has at least seven Tupolevs, seven Boeings bought before the 1979 Islamic Revolution and 28 European Airbuses and Fokkers.

Iran has blamed some recent crashes of its American-made planes on U.S. sanctions that it says make it difficult to import spare parts, even from Europe. It does not have similar difficulty buying parts for its Russian planes, some of whose recent crashes have been blamed on poor maintenance and other problems.

The Tu-154, the workhorse of passenger airlines in the former Soviet Union, has been in commercial service since 1972. More than 900 have been built and more than 160 exported to airlines around the world. Due to noise and pollution regulations, the planes do not fly to Western destinations.

A Tu-154 crashed during a thunderstorm in Ukraine on Aug. 22 while en route from a Black Sea resort to St. Petersburg, Russia, killing all 170 aboard. The craft was owned by Russia's Pulkovo Airlines.

Mashhad, 620 miles northeast of Tehran, is visited by some 12 million people annually on pilgrimage to its Shiite Islamic shrines.

(Copyright 2006 by The Associated Press.  All Rights Reserved.)