Iran mourns 115 people killed in plane crash

Iran today mourned the 115 people killed when a military plane crashed into an apartment building in Tehran, with the media running tributes to the many journalists on board and relatives criticising the government.

The C-130 plane, a four-engine turbo-prop, took off yesterday for southern Iran where the journalists were going to cover military manoeuvres. It suffered engine failure and was returning to make an emergency landing at Tehran’s Mehrabad airport when it lost altitude. It hit a 10-storey building in the Azari residential district, setting it on fire, and crashed to the ground.

All 94 crew and passengers were killed. Another 21 people in the apartment building were killed and 90 were injured, state radio said.

The Hamshahri newspaper quoted the wife of one of its photographers who was on the flight as saying she was told by her husband that the pilot was refusing to fly the plane because of an apparent technical problem.

“Mohammad Karbalai-Ahmed, Hamshahri’s photographer, called his wife and told her that the flight was delayed apparently because of a technical problem and the pilot refuses to take off,” the paper quoted the wife as saying.

Aviation officials were not available for comment.

Iranian flights often face delays because of technical or logistical problems. Iran’s aviation industry suffers under US sanctions imposed after the 1979 Islamic revolution which prevent it from purchasing spare parts for its fleet of American-made aircraft.

Newspapers published front-page tributes, with thick black borders, to the dead journalists today. The Hamshahri paper described the tragedy as “Iranian media’s greatest grief".

State television ran archive footage honouring the TV reporters and crew who died. Some newscasters recited prayers for the dead.

The authorities did not say why the plane suffered engine failure. The cause is being investigated.

Hundreds of friends and relatives the victims, dressed in black, queued up outside a Tehran morgue to identify the dead.

Blaming the government, Mansour Rezvani, 21, said: “It is not usual to transfer non-military people by military plane, a plane which was built in my grandfather’s time.”

Houshang Qajar, 53, said crisis management was non-existent in Iran.

“Occasionally we hear bad news – earthquakes, floods, road accidents and air crashes,” he said. “We need competent managers. That is what our country lacks.”

The influential Sharq daily newspaper also criticised the government, referring to the frequency of plane crashes in Iran.

“People are tired of hearing of air crashes. We hope that next time it happens in a remote area so at least people in the streets will not be killed,” the paper said.

Bitterly, it added: “Some day it will be our turn.”

Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad sent their condolences to the relatives of the dead. The government said the victims should be regarded as “martyrs” as they lost their lives while being flown to report a military manoeuvre.

State television reported that the victims’ families would receive up to 300,000,000 Iranian rials (€28,000) in compensation for each victim.

The television said the funeral will be held tomorrow.

Iran has suffered a series of plane crashes in recent years. In April, an Iranian military Boeing 707 with 157 people aboard skidded off a runway at Tehran airport and caught fire, killing three people.

In 2003, a Russian-made Ilyushin-76 carrying members of the elite Revolutionary Guards crashed in the mountains of south-eastern Iran, killing 302 people.

In 2002, a Ukrainian-built aircraft carrying aerospace scientists crashed in central Iran, killing all 44 people aboard.