TEHRAN, Iran – An Iranian passenger plane crashed Wednesday in northwest Iran, killing all 168 people on board, state media reported.
Footage from the scene on state-run Press TV showed a deep trench smashed into an agricultural field by the impact, littered with smoking wreckage. It showed a large chunk of a wing, but much of the wreckage appeared to be in small pieces.
The Russian-made Caspian Airlines jet was heading from Tehran to the Armenian capital Yerevan near the village of Jannatabad outside the city of Qazvin, around 75 miles northwest of Tehran, state television said. It crashed 16 minutes after taking off from Tehran’s Imam Khomeini International Airport, TV reported.
The Qazvin emergency services director Hossein Bahzadpour told the IRNA news agency that the plane was completely destroyed and shattered to pieces, and the wreckage was in flames. “It his highly likely that all the passengers on the flight were killed,” Bahzadpour said.
He did not give a number, but Iranian Civil Aviation Organization spokesman Reza Jafarzadeh told state television that 153 passengers and 15 crewmembers were on board. State TV said all were killed.