Updated on
Summary
Seventy people are feared to have been killed in an air crash in Iran on Sunday night whereas 32 others were rescued with minor injuries.The plane was on an internal flight from Mehrabad Airport in Tehran to the north-western city of Urmia when it crashed in heavy fog near its destination, state media reported.Emergency crews were able to rescue up to 50 people from the wreckage with relatively light injuries, according to preliminary reports. Initial reports said that 105 people were on board in total.The crash will once again focus attention on the state of the Iranian air industry, which has had difficulty in maintaining its fleet amid economic difficulties and international sanctions.There have been at least five other major disasters since December 2005, the most recent being the loss of a Caspian Airlines jet en route for Yerevan in Armenia which came down in north-western Iran in July 2009 with the loss of all 168 on board.According to reports, the plane involved in the latest incident, an Iran Air Boeing 727, was one hour late in departing because of bad weather across parts of the country.
