TEHRAN, Iran — Thirteen of the 16 people killed in a plane crash in northeastern Iran were members of the crew, most of them from Kazakhstan, state television reported today.
The Russian-made plane, operated by Tehran-based Aria Airlines and carrying 153 passengers and crew, skidded off the runway and hit a wall Friday while landing in the northeastern city of Mashhad. Earlier, officials said 17 were killed.
Iran’s civil aviation spokesman, Reza Jafarzadeh, said the plane’s high speed while landing was a key cause of the crash, according to the TV report. Iran’s official news agency said Friday that the tires of the Ilyushin-62 plane failed on landing.
The crash came just over a week after another Iranian passenger plane nose-dived into the ground shortly after takeoff, killing all 168 people aboard.
Iran’s aging fleet is plagued by maintenance problems, blamed on financial straits and U.S. sanctions that make it harder for the country to get many types of spare parts.
Among the dead in Friday’s crash was the manager of privately owned Aria Airlines, which leased the plane from Kazahstan.
Nine of the dead crew members were Kazakhs, and 33 other people were injured in the crash, said state TV. Aria’s license has been suspended until the investigation into the accident is completed, it said.
A crash survivor said the passengers felt air turbulence as they were landing and the plane bounced up and down on the runway.
“The only thing we did was protect our children, and all of a sudden, dust was thrown in our faces,” state TV quoted the survivor as saying without providing a name. “When we wanted to escape, the emergency exit door was broken, and when they opened it, we did not dare jump down because it was too high. We slid down the wings.”
Television footage showed the plane sitting at an angle, its tail resting awkwardly on the ground and the mangled front end pointing toward the sky. The rest of the aircraft appeared largely intact. The plane began its journey in Iran’s capital, Tehran, some 600 miles from Mashhad.
U.S. sanctions prevent Iran from updating its 30-year-old American aircraft and make it difficult to get European spare parts or planes as well. The country has come to rely on Russian aircraft, many of them Soviet-era planes that are harder to get parts for since the fall of the Soviet Union.
Iran’s worst crash came in February 2003 and also involved a Russian-made Ilyushin that plowed into the mountains of southeastern Iran, killing 302 people — mostly members of the elite Revolutionary Guard.
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