Iran air-crash - Feb 2003

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Plane With 270 Aboard Crashes in Iran 33 minutes agoAdd World - AP to My

By ALI AKBAR DAREINI, Associated Press Writer TEHRAN, Iran - A plane

carrying 270 passengers, most of them members of the elite Revolutionary

Guards, crashed in the mountains of southeastern Iran on Wednesday and all on

board were believed dead, state-run Tehran television reported. Iran Officials

Blame Crash on Pilot Error The flight was en route from Zahedan, on the

Pakistan border, to Kerman, about 500 miles southeast of Tehran. It crashed

about 50 miles from its destination, near the city of Shahdad. The television

report said the plane lost contact with the control tower at 5:30 p.m.

Television quoted an anonymous official as saying the forces had visited the

impoverished Sistan-Baluchestan province, of which Zahedan is the capital, for

an "important mission." The Revolutionary Guards are seen as the defenders of

Iran's Islamic regime. The report said the plane was a Russian-made Antonov

airliner. There were no more details available on the crash. Wednesday's crash

was the latest in a string of air disasters in Iran mostly involving

Russian-built aircraft.

 

A Ukrainian An-140 aircraft flew into a mountainside Dec. 23, 2002, while

preparing to land at an airport near the central city of Isfahan, killing all

the estimated 46 scientists aboard.

In February 2002, a Russian-made Tupolev Tu-154 airliner, carrying 119 people,

smashed into snow-covered mountains not far from its destination of

Khorramabad, 230 miles southwest of Tehran.

In 1988, 290 people died when an Iran Air A300 Airbus was mistakenly shot down

by the USS Vincennes over the Persian Gulf.

 

 

 

 

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18/02/2003