Plane crash near Tehran claims 2 lives

A small training aircraft has crashed and burst into flames near the Iranian capital, killing the two people on board.

Firefighters have confirmed that both passengers lost their lives when the plane came down in windy condition near a petrol station this morning, local Iranian media reported.

The incident occurred not long after the plane took off from Karaj’s Payam Airport, which is mainly used for cargo and general aviation.

Eyewitnesses said that local people arriving at the crash scene had tried in vain to extinguish the flames that had engulfed the aircraft.

The site of the crash is about 24 km (15 miles) from Payam Airport and in the Mahdasht region, situated around 40 km (25 miles) from the capital Tehran.

The cause of the crash has not yet been determined, and experts from Iran’s Civil Aviation Organization (CAO) have been dispatched to the scene.

The head of HF Dorna Company, the plane’s manufacturer, told Press TV website that the aircraft was one of their Bluebirds, which has been popular with domestic flight schools.

Yaghoub Entesary expressed his regret at the tragic incident and said that although this particular operator had accumulated over 8,000 flight hours with its fleet of Bluebirds, none had ever crashed due to a fault with the aircraft.

“We have already dispatched our chief engineer to collaborate with the CAO to determine the cause of the crash,” he said, adding that there was a flight data recorder (FDR) onboard and, which may reveal important information about the causes of the crash. At the time of the report, he did not know whether the FDR was recovered.

Entesary also said that those onboard were a pilot instructor and a trainee, and the aircraft was operated by Homa Flight Training School.