TEHRAN: Iranian rescue teams struggled to recover bodies on Tuesday from the wreckage of a plane that crashed in hazardous terrain near a mountain peak two days earlier with 66 people on board.

“Deep and dangerous crevices in the area of the crash have made it impossible for helicopters to land,” Ghafoor Rastinrooz, director of the regional medical centre, told official news agency IRNA.

“The bodies must be transferred by hand to the foot of the mountain which will be time-consuming,” he said.

Aseman Airlines flight EP3704 disappeared from radar as it flew over the Zagros mountain range on Sunday morning, around 45 minutes after taking off from Tehran on a domestic flight.

After two days of heavy snow and fog, the weather finally cleared on Tuesday morning, allowing a helicopter crew to spot a piece of the wreckage with the company’s logo.

A pilot told state broadcaster IRIB he had seen “scattered bodies around the plane” and that it was located on one of the Dena mountains at a height of around 4,000 metres.

Footage from the helicopter showed the wreckage almost entirely buried in snow on a sheer mountain face, while officials warned that bad weather was expected to return and could last for days.

Around 100 mountaineers have been making their way up the mountain since Monday and teams were being choppered to near the crash site.

“Little by little they have reached the area and are collecting bodies,” Shahin Fathi, from Iran’s Red Crescent, told state TV.

“As we’re approaching sunset and the helicopters will no longer be able to fly, the teams will stay in place overnight and we will try to increase the number of teams tomorrow, although it’s very difficult.” The head of the Red Crescent team, Mohammad Hossein Kobadi, told IRIB that helicopters were able to drop off equipment at the site of the crash but high winds were making the work “very dangerous and difficult” and there was an avalanche risk.

The ATR-72 twin-engine plane, in service since 1993, had gone missing while flying from the capital’s Mehrabad airport towards the city of Yasuj, some 500 kilometres to the south.

Published in Dawn, February 21st, 2018