IRANIAN AIRLINER CAUGHT FIRE BEFORE CRASH: ARMENIAN OFFICIAL

Agence France Presse
July 15, 2009 Wednesday 1:01 PM GMT

An Iranian airliner en route to neighbouring Armenia crashed on
Wednesday, killing all 168 people on board, after one of its engines
caught fire, an Armenian official said.

"A fire broke out in one engine, and the pilot attempted an emergency
landing," the deputy head of the Armenian civil aviation organisation,
Arsen Pogossian, told a press conference, while stressing that his
comment was "not an official version" of what occurred.

The Caspian Airlines Tupolev crashed near a village outside the city
of Qazvin shortly after takeoff from Tehran’s international Imam
Khomeini airport.

Iran’s ISNA news agency quoted a local police officer as saying that
some witnesses had reported that the plane was on fire in mid-air.

Another witness was quoted by ISNA as saying it had circled for some
time for a possible landing before it crashed in a wheat farm.

Pogossian said it had been due to enter Armenian airspace at 12:52 pm
(0752 GMT). "at 12:48 Iranian controllers called and warned that the
plane had disappeared off radar screens," he added.

Of the 153 passengers aboard, 147 were Iranian, of whom 31 were of
Armenian origin, he said. The remaining six were four Armenians and
two Georgians.

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

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 international flights to Hungary, the United Arab
Emirates, Syria, Ukraine, Armenia, Belarus and Turkey.

Landlocked Armenia has been seeking closer ties with Iran because of
an economic blockade imposed by neighbours Azerbaijan and traditional
foe Turkey.

The Islamic republic is home to hundreds of thousands of Armenians
and a string of historically important churches of the country’s
Gregorian rite.