TEHRAN: All 66 people on board an Iranian passenger plane were feared dead after it crashed on Sunday into the country’s Zagros mountains, with emergency services struggling to locate the wreckage in blizzard conditions.

Aseman Airlines flight EP3704 disappeared from radar around 45 minutes after takeoff from Tehran’s Mehrabad airport, the airline’s public relations chief Mohammad Tabatabai told state broadcaster IRIB.

The ATR-72 twin-engine plane, in service for 25 years, left the capital at around 8am and was heading towards the city of Yasuj, some 500 kilometres to the south.

After conflicting reports on fatalities and the location of the crash, officials said rescue teams were still not able to find the wreckage.

“We still have no access to the spot of the crash and therefore we cannot accurately and definitely confirm the death of all passengers,” Tabatabai told the ISNA news agency.

He said the plane was carrying 60 passengers, including one child, as well as six members of crew.

Jalal Pooranfar, regional head for Iran’s emergency services, told the ISNA news agency that rescue and relief teams had been sent to the possible area of the crash.

“But the helicopter could not continue its path due to snow and blizzard,” he said.

Seyed Noor Mohammad Mousavi, head of the local Red Crescent office, told the IRNA news agency a drone had been dispatched to help find the wreckage.

A total of 120 people from 30 different emergency teams were sent to help with the search, another Red Crescent official said.

Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei sent a message of condolence, saying the news had “left our hearts overwhelmed with sadness and sorrow”, according to state television.

Aging fleets

Families of the passengers gathered at a mosque near Mehrabad airport.

“I can’t bring myself to believe it,” said a woman whose husband was on board.

A man who missed the doomed flight told reporters of his mixed emotions.

“God has been really kind to me but I am so sad from the bottom of my heart for all those dear ones who lost their lives,” the unnamed man told the Tabnak news website, which showed a picture of his unused ticket.

Decades of sanctions have left Iran’s airlines with aging fleets of passenger planes which they have struggled to maintain and modernise.

Aseman’s fleet includes at least three ATR-72s that date back to the early 1990s, according to the IRNA news agency.

A spokesman for ATR, which is part-owned by Europe’s Airbus, told AFP “the circumstances of the accident remain unknown” and that international investigators were ready to assist Iran “if needed”.

President Hassan Rouhani ordered the transport ministry to set up a crisis group to investigate the crash and coordinate rescue efforts, ISNA reported.

Aseman’s three Boeing 727-200s are almost as old as the country’s 1979 Islamic revolution, having made their first flights the following year.

Iran has suffered multiple aviation disasters, most recently in 2014 when 39 people were killed when a Sepahan Airlines plane crashed just after take-off from Tehran, narrowly avoiding many more deaths when it plummeted near a busy market.

Lifting sanctions on aviation purchases was a key clause in the nuclear deal Iran signed with world powers in 2015.

Following the deal, Aseman Airlines finalised an agreement to buy 30 Boeing 737 MAX jets for $3 billion (2.4 billion euros) last June, with an option to buy 30 more.

However, the sale could be scuppered if US President Donald Trump chooses to re-impose sanctions in the coming months, as he has threatened to do.

Published in Dawn, February 19th, 2018