IRAN: All 117 people aboard an Iranian domestic flight were killed when a Russian-built Tupolev 154 airliner crashed yesterday morning in mountains while trying to land at the city of Khorramabad.
"Unfortunately all the 117 passengers and crew members were killed in the accident," Iran's civil aviation body said in a statement.
It added that the mountain in a range along the border with Iraq was covered in snow and fog, which could have contributed to the crash and was hindering the search for bodies.
"Our rescue teams some 100 strong are at the scene, but given that the mountain is covered in snow it will be very difficult to reach the aircraft quickly," the civil aviation authorities said.
Tehran airport sources said there were 104 passengers and 13 crew on the flight by Iran Air Tours, an affiliate of the state carrier Iran Air, and that they had set up a crisis centre for families of the victims.
Earlier a local official said: "We will need mountaineers to bring down the bodies." The official said the plane, on a 420 km internal flight from Tehran, had come down near Sarab-Doreh, south-west of Khorramabad, in a particularly inaccessible area.
The wheels and other pieces of the aircraft had been located, but not any survivors or bodies.
Witnesses from around the nearby village of Cheguini told state television they saw the plane hit the Sefid-Kouh, or White Mountain.
"There was a strong explosion and flames," one villager said.
Civil servants from Iran's education ministry were believed to be among those aboard.
The civil aviation authority said the dead included 17 women, two of them crew members, and four Spaniards. The Spanish foreign ministry in Madrid said the four were on a sales mission in Iran for household electrical goods.
A government spokesman, Mr Abdollah Ramezanzadeh, said President Mohammad Khatami had ordered a commission of inquiry to determine the cause of the crash.
The three-engined Tu-154, operating since 1968, has a relatively good safety record.
On February 8th, 1993, a Tu-154 of Iran Air Tours collided with an Iranian air force fighter on taking off from Tehran airport, killing all 131 aboard.
The last major air crash in Iran was in May 2001 when a Russian-made Yak-40 came down in bad weather killing all 30 on board, including the transport minister and seven members of parliament.
In the wake of that accident a parliamentary commission of inquiry called on the authorities to tighten safety on domestic flights.
Iranian airlines are hampered by a lack of reliable aircraft because of a unilateral US embargo on the country. Iran Air has largely to make do with ageing Boeings acquired before the 1979 Islamic revolution and is desperately short of spare parts.
Tehran is in the process of purchasing a number of European Airbuses, but airlines in the meantime are using often vintage Russian aircraft, sometimes leased complete with crews.