Tajikistan condoles Iran over plane crash

Tajikistan’s President Imomali Rakhmon has expressed his condolences over the crash of an Iranian plane which resulted in the deaths of at least 77 people.

Twenty-seven people were also injured when an IranAir-operated passenger plane crashed near the city of Orumiyeh in West Azarbaijan Province on Sunday night.

In a message to his Iranian counterpart Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Rakhmon expressed his condolences to the president and the bereaved families of the victims.

“The news of this distressing incident has saddened the people of Tajikistan,” the message said.

The plane crashed near Lake Orumiyeh (700 kilometers northwest of the Iranian capital, Tehran), head of Iran’s State Emergency Center Gholam-Reza Masoumi said on Sunday.

The American-made Boeing 727 had taken off from Mehrabad International Airport in Tehran, with a one-hour delay and was en route to Orumiyeh International Airport when the incident occurred.

The plane reportedly approached the runway to land, but was forced to delay touchdown due to severe winter weather conditions. The aircraft then disappeared from radar and went down in a farmland after making a second attempt to land.

There have been 29 cases of plane crashes in Iran since the victory of the Islamic Revolution, which have caused the loss of more than 1,600 lives.

The first incident after the Revolution took place in January 1980, when an IranAir’s Boeing crashed in North of Tehran and killing all 128 passengers onboard.

The deadliest incident was the crash of a military plane belonging to Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guard Corps (IRGC) near Kerman in 2003 which led to the deaths of 276 people.