Iran plane crashed 20 miles from destination

A military plane carrying 302 members of Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards has crashed in the country’s south-eastern mountains, killing everyone on board, state-run media reported.

The plane was en route yesterday from Zahedan, on the Pakistan border, to Kerman, around 500 miles south east of Tehran, state-run Tehran television reported. It crashed about 20 miles from its destination.

The Russian-made Antonov airliner operated by the Iranian military lost contact with the control tower at 5.30pm local time, according to the reports.

The official Islamic Republic News Agency said rescuers at the crash site had confirmed all 302 people on board were killed.

It was also the latest in a string of plane accidents the Iranian government has blamed on US sanctions, arguing that they have prevented the country from repairing and replacing its aging fleet.

Trade between Iran and the US has been frozen under sanctions Washington imposed after the 1979 takeover of the US Embassy in Tehran.

The news agency said the plane’s passengers and crew were all members of the Revolutionary Guards, an elite group under the direct control of supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The guards protect Iran’s borders and defend ruling hard-liners.

State television and radio did not offer reasons for the crash and did not address the possibility of terrorism. There was heavy snowfall in many parts of Iran on yesterday, including in Zahedan, which hadn’t seen snow in three years.

Tehran television quoted an official as saying the forces had visited the impoverished Sistan-Baluchestan province, of which Zahedan is the capital, for an ”important mission”.

The government issued a statement offering condolences to the families of the victims, television and radio reports said.

Iranians were preparing for the feast of Velayat today, an Islamic holiday when Shiites believe Islam’s prophet Mohammad appointed his son-in-law, Ali, as his successor.

The crash was the worst in Iranian history with the toll surpassing the 290 killed on July 3, 1988, when an Iran Air A300 Airbus was shot down over the Persian Gulf by the USS Vincennes. The US military said it misidentified the plane as an Iranian fighter, an account disputed by Iran.

In December, transportation minister Ahmad Khorram said Iran’s air industry was suffering from US sanctions on purchases of American-made planes and warned of air disasters if the trade ban was not lifted.

The minister, speaking days after the December 23 crash of a Ukrainian An-140 plane that killed 46 scientists, said several of Iran’s aging Boeing and Airbus planes have been grounded because of technical problems and lack of spare parts. He said Iran’s fleet was more than two decades old and has “reached a crisis point”.

Since the 1979 Islamic revolution, Iran has supplemented its fleet of Boeing and European-made Airbus airliners with planes bought or leased from the former Soviet Union.

In February last year, a Russian-made Tupolev Tu-154 airliner carrying 119 people smashed into snow-covered mountains not far from its destination of Khorramabad, 230 miles south west of Tehran.

In May 2001, 30 people – including the then transportation minister – died when a Russian-made YAK-40 crashed in bad weather.