IRAN: An Iranian aircraft carrying migrant workers crashed as it came in to land at Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates yesterday. Forty-three of the 46 people on board were killed.
The Kish Airline aircraft, a Dutch-made twin-engined Fokker 50, smashed into the desert, two miles (three kilometres) from the airport and between two residential areas, at 11.00 a.m. (0700 GMT).
Officials blamed a technical fault and said they had retrieved the aircraft's black box. Witnesses saw a wobbling aircraft making strange engine noises. It then nosedived.
"Forty-three people died and three survived," said civil aviation official Ahmad bu Kallah.
The three, a Filipino, an Iranian and another survivor, were in critical condition. The dead included at least 11 Iranian passengers and all six Iranian crew.
Sharjah airport officials said passengers were from India, Iran, United Arab Emirates, Algeria, Egypt, Nepal, Syria, Nigeria, Bangladesh, Philippines, Sudan and Cameroon.
Another civil aviation official, Ghanem al-Hajiri, said the aircraft had made contact with Sharjah airport before it crashed. It was the sixth crash involving Iranian aircraft since 2000.
One witness said the aircraft had gone into a nose-dive. "From the impact of the crash it overturned, split into two and then burst into flames."
Builders at a nearby site said they saw the aircraft wobbling as it descended and heard strange noises coming from the engine.
Rescue teams wearing face masks loaded charred bodies into a large refrigerated truck while others searched for more bodies, witnesses said.
Shocked relatives, some crying, watched television images of the wreckage at Sharjah airport.
Iran's Aviation Authority said in a statement on Iran's official news agency that the aircraft had asked for an emergency landing as it was coming into Sharjah, then deviated to the left and crashed. It said Iran would send a team to help investigate.
Kish Airline runs domestic and some short-haul international routes to and from Iran's Kish Island in the Gulf.
Kish, a free-trade zone which Iran is promoting as a tourist destination, is popular with foreign workers in the UAE, who need to leave the country to renew residence and work permits.
Aviation experts have blamed a spate of Iranian crashes in recent years on ageing and outdated planes.
A Russian-built Ilyushin 76M/MD military transport aircraft crashed in Iran last February killing all 276 people aboard.
In 1998, a Ukrainian Ilyushin 76 cargo plane crashed into Gulf waters off the northern tip of the UAE shortly after take-off, killing all eight crew members aboard.
A Tajik Tupolev 154 airliner fell in 1997 in the UAE desert on its way to Sharjah emirate, killing 85 people.