Iran Air crashes killing 71 of 106 onboard

An IranAir passenger jet carrying 106 people crashed as it was making an emergency landing during a snowstorm on Sunday in the country's northwest and broke into several pieces, killing 71 of those on board, Iranian media reported.The others survived with slight injuries.

The pilots of the Boeing-727, operated by Iran's national airline, attempted the emergency landing in the city of Orumiyeh, 460 miles (700 kilometres) northwest of the capital, Tehran, after reporting a technical failure to the control tower, the semiofficial Mehr news agency reported, quoting a deputy provincial governor, Ebrahim Fatholahi. The nature of the technical failure was unclear. A spokesman for the Iranian civil aviation organisation, Abbas Mosayebi, said only that the plane "faced an incident," state TV reported. The network also said the aircraft disappeared from radar and went down in farmland after making a second attempt to land. The aircraft was heading from Tehran to Orumiyeh, capital of West Azerbaijan province. State TV aired footage showing rescue workers and local farmers searching for survivors on Sunday night in parts of the wrecked plane, under snowfall and in the darkness.
Thirty-five people survived, including two crew members, said Javad Mahmoudi, deputy governor of West Azerbaijan, speaking to State TV. He put the number of confirmed dead at 71. Some of the passengers were only lightly wounded and able to walk off the plane, but some had to be taken to hospital, Mosayebi said. Heavy snow complicated rescue efforts, said the head of the State Emergency Centre, Gholam Reza Masoumi, according to the semi-official Fars news agency. The report also said there was fog in the area. The plane broke into several pieces, but there was no explosion or fire, said Mahmoud Mozaffar, head of the rescue department of  Iran's Red Crescent Society, speaking on state TV.

Iran has a history of frequent air accidents blamed on its ageing aircraft and poor maintenance. IranAir's fleet includes Boeing and Airbus aircraft, many of them bought before the country's 1979 Islamic Revolution. Iranian airlines, including those run by the state, are chronically strapped for cash, and maintenance has suffered, experts say. 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 Soviet Union's fall.