HUMAN ERROR BLAMED FOR IRAN AIR CRASH

PRESS TV
Mon, 10 Aug 2009 14:46:35 GMT

Iran’s Civil Aviation Organization (CAO) says pilot error and excessive
landing speed were the main causes of the Aria Qeshm plane crash in
the city of Mashhad on July 24.

Of the 153 passengers and 15 crew, 16 people were killed when a
Russian-built Ilyushin Il-62M, owned by a Kazakh company and leased
by Iran’s Aria Qeshm company, overshot the runway after touchdown
and smashed through a perimeter wall.

The incident also saw 31 people injured who were immediately taken
to nearby hospitals for treatment.

Faramarz Sarvi, the director of the CAO Flight Standards Department,
said that after more than 4,200 hours of investigation and based
on information retrieved from the plane’s black boxes, officials
found that human error, not equipment failure, had led to the tragic
incident.

"Because of the high-speed, the pilot apparently lost control of the
plane upon landing, causing it to run off the runway," said Sarvi,
adding that both the plane and its crew had passed all pre-flight
safety inspections before take-off.

Sarvi rejected reports suggesting that the crew were involved in a
heated argument at the time of the crash, although the cockpit voice
recorder indicated to distractive conversations between the pilot
and Mehdi Dadpey, the airline’s managing director, who was onboard.

He added that this was a breach of proper cockpit management and
played a significant role in the crash.

The incident was the second major airline catastrophe to have befallen
Iran in a period of 10 days.

On July 15, an airliner went down near Jannat-abad village, killing
all 168 people onboard. The plane, a Russian-made Tupolev Tu-154M
belonging to Iran’s Caspian Airlines, was flying from Tehran to
Yerevan in Armenia.