Black boxes found after plane tragedy

Investigators have recovered black boxes belonging to a plane that crashed shortly after taking off from Iran yesterday, killing all 168 people on board.

The Caspian Airlines aircraft was on its way from Tehran to Yerevan, Armenia.

Iranian state radio today quoted chief investigator Ahmad Majidi as saying one of the two recovered boxes was damaged. The boxes – the plane’s cockpit voice and flight data recorders – will likely be sent to the aircraft’s Russian manufacturers for analysis.

The crash was the latest in a string of air disasters in recent years that have highlighted Iran’s difficulties in maintaining its ageing fleet of planes.