Passenger plane crashes near Tehran, 48 killed
Tehran : A passenger plane crashed on the outskirts of Iran’s capital Tehran on Sunday morning( Aug 10 ), killing all the 48 people on board.
The Antonov-140 plane, bound for Iran’s eastern Tabas city, crashed after taking off from Tehran Mehrabad Airport at 9:45 a.m. local time (0515 GMT), official IRNA news agency said.
A total of 48 people, including 40 passengers and eight crew members, were on board when the plane crashed in the residential area of Azadi town, just 5 km to the west of Tehran, IRINN said.
Failure in one of the plane’s engines caused the plane to crash on the northern side of Tehran-Karaj highway, semi-official Fars news agency quoted Mohammad Ilkhani, the head of Iran Airports Company, as saying.
Iran has seen several air disasters involving both civil and military use aircraft in recent years.
In the latest incident in January 2011, an air crash near the airport of the northwestern city of Urmia killed 77 people, including four foreigners.
44 killed in tourist bus accident
Meanwhile ,forty-four people were killed and 11 others injured after a tour bus fell into a valley following a three-vehicle pile-up Saturday in southwest China’s Tibet Autonomous Region, local authorities said .
The 55-seat bus carrying 50 people fell off a 10-meter-plus-high cliff after crashing into a sports utility vehicle and a pick-up truck at about 4:25 p.m. Saturday on the No. 318 National Highway in Nyemo County, the regional government said.
The bus passengers were mainly tourists from regions including Anhui, Shanghai, Shandong and Hebei.
An investigation into the cause of the accident is under way.
Police have detained managers of the Feixiang Travel Agency and the Shengdi Vehicle Tour Company blamed for the accident.
The regional government has held an emergency meeting, ordering a general overhaul of road safety and travel safety across the region to avoid similar fatal accidents. – Xinhua
Aug. 10,2014
