AUSTRALIAN SIBLINGS IN PLANE CRASH

Stuff.co.nz
July 17 2009
New Zealand

The black boxes from an Iranian airliner that crashed in flames near
Tehran, killing all 168 people on board, including two Australians,
have been found.

"The plane’s recording and flight systems have been found," Ahmad
Majidi, head of the ministry’s crisis unit, told the official IRNA
news agency.

"Our experts are examining the black boxes to try to determine the
cause of the crash."

Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs today confirmed two
Australians – a NSW brother and sister in their 20s – were listed
on the flight manifesto for the Caspian Airlines Tupolev TU-154,
which crashed near the city of Qazvin.

The siblings hold dual citizenship with Australia and Iran, a DFAT
spokeswoman said.

A statement from DFAT said the siblings’ remains had not yet been
identified.

"Consular staff from the Australian Embassy in Tehran, Iran,
are seeking urgent information from local authorities about the
arrangements to identify the Australians and assistance to return
their remains," the statement said.

‘NOT A SINGLE FINGER’

The Caspian Airlines Tupolev-154 had been en route to Armenia when the
plane caught fire mid-air and plunged flaming into farmland, killing
everyone on board. It is the worst air disaster in Iran in years.

Witnesses and state media said the Caspian Airlines plane was ablaze
before smashing into the ground and exploded shortly after taking
off from the capital’s international airport.

Television images showed a vast crater at the disaster site littered
with debris of plane parts, shoes and clothes.

A relief worker said all he found were "pieces of flesh and bones."

"There is not a single piece which can be identified. There is not
a single finger of anybody left," he said, standing next to a body
bag filled with human flesh.

"All people aboard … the crashed plane are dead. The plane had 153
passengers and 15 crew members," said Mohammad Reza Montazer Khorasan,
head of the health ministry’s disaster management centre.

In Yerevan, the deputy head of the Armenian civil aviation
organisation, Arsen Pogossian, told a press conference that of the
153 passengers aboard, 147 were Iranian, of whom 31 were of Armenian
origin.

The remaining six were four Armenians and two Georgians. Iranian
officials said 10 members of Iran’s junior national judo team were
also among those killed.

Pogossian said the pilot had attempted an emergency landing after an
engine caught fire.

Ad Feedback "A fire broke out in one engine, and the pilot attempted
an emergency landing," Pogossian said.

Witnesses too spoke of seeing the plane on fire before it plunged
to earth.

"I saw the plane when it was just … above the ground. Its wheels
were out and there was fire blazing from the lower parts," witness
Ablolfazl Idaji said, according to the Fars news agency.

"It seemed the pilot was trying to land and moments later the plane
hit the ground and broke into pieces that were scattered far and wide."

A farmer, 18-year-old Ahmad, gave a similar account.

"I was driving my tractor when I saw a big fire in the sky," he
told AFP.

"There were burnt parts scattered across the ground and I followed them
and arrived at the crater. You could not believe your eyes. Nothing
was left, but just a big hole with fire coming out of it."

ANGER AT CASPIAN

Many relatives poured out their anger at Caspian Airlines, saying
its planes could not be trusted.

"I hate these planes. With so much travel between Iran and Armenia,
there have to be better planes," said Alex, 24, an Iranian of Armenian
origin who lost around a dozen friends and relatives in the crash,
including children.

Another man who was mourning the death of his sister-in-law too
claimed the airline used faulty planes.

"I travel a lot to Armenia, but I never fly on a plane. I don’t trust
them," said the man, whose sister-in-law perished while on her way
to meet her daughter studying in an Armenian university.

"Have you every flown in a Caspian plane? Its seats are all rickety."

As he spoke, several local villagers were seen carrying away broken
parts of the plane, while some took pictures of each other holding
the debris.

The Tupolev Tu-154 plane is a Soviet-designed, medium-range
three-engine aircraft. It was a best-seller for the Russian aircraft
industry between 1972 and 1994.

More than 1000 examples of the medium-range three-engine airliner were
built between the first flight in 1972 and 1994, when production ended.

Similar in size and performance to a Boeing 737, with a range of 4000
kilometres, the Tu-154 can carry between 155 and 180 passengers at
a cruising speed of 850 kilometres an hour.

The last major accident involving the plane was on August 22, 2006,
when a Tupolev of the Russian Pulkovo airline crashed in Ukraine
after trying to fly above a storm, killing 171 people.

‘In total shock’

Grey-haired Arlen Stepanian wept as he waited for relief workers to
find something to help identify his two daughters who were aboard
the plane.

One daughter, Shogher, had told him minutes before take off that the
plane was facing a problem and that take-off had been delayed.

"They were going with their friends on holiday. I had not seen them
for a week. Shogher talked to me from the plane and said the flight
was delayed as there seemed to be a problem with the plane," Stepanian
told AFP.

He said he received her call at 10.52am local time.

"Their mother is at home. She is in a total shock," he said, waiting
near the massive crater from which smoke was still rising hours after
the disaster.

Dozens of policemen and relief workers were preventing relatives from
getting right up to the crater, but the accident site even from a
distance was one of horror and devastation.

Iran’s civil aviation spokesman Reza Jafarzadeh said the plane took
off from Imam Khomeini international airport at 11.33am local time but
"16 minutes later it disappeared off the radar and then it crashed".

State television’s website quoted Ahmad Momeni, managing director
of Iran’s airport authority, as saying that the last conversation
between the pilot and the ground was "normal and did not indicate
any technical glitch".

MAJOR CRASHES

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has ordered a transport ministry probe
into the disaster, the third major plane crash in six weeks.

Two weeks ago a Yemenia Airbus crashed in the Indian Ocean off the
Comoros, killing 152 people, while on June 1 an Air France Airbus
plunged into the Atlantic coast off Brazil killing 228.

Iran, which has been under years of international sanctions, has
suffered a number of aviation disasters over the past decade but
Wednesday’s crash is the worst for many years.

In December 2005, a total of 108 people were killed when a Lockheed
transport plane crashed into a foot of a high-rise housing block
outside Tehran.

In November 2006, a military plane crashed on takeoff at Tehran’s
Mehrabad airport, killing all 39 people on board, including 30 members
of the elite Revolutionary Guards.

Iran’s civil and military fleet is made up of ancient aircraft in
very poor condition due to their age and lack of maintenance. The
Iranian regime is barred by sanctions from buying American Boeing
planes or European Airbus aircraft when they include a significant
number of US parts.

Caspian Airlines was established in 1992. Its website said it
operates more than 50 regular and numerous charter flights each
week between Iranian cities and several Middle Eastern and Eastern
European destinations.