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Airplane skids in Iran, killing 29

By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published September 2, 2006

TEHRAN, Iran - A landing Iranian passenger plane skidded off the runway and raked its wing along the ground, sparking a fire that killed 29 of the 148 people on board Friday in the latest deadly crash of a Russian-made aircraft.

Rescue workers in the northeastern city of Mashhad carried survivors on stretchers out of the gutted craft, which lay in a pool of water near the runway with its middle charred and its top collapsed.

"The plane was shaking badly during the landing, then it suddenly lurched to the left," one survivor, Sahar Karimi, told the Associated Press from a hospital in Mashhad. "Then it caught fire, and all the passengers rushed to the emergency exit."

State television reported that a tire exploded as the plane landed, but the spokesman for Iran's Civil Aviation Organization, Reza Jafarzadeh, said investigators had not confirmed that and it was still not clear what caused the plane to slide off the runway.

The 11 crew members lived, "and this can help the investigation team to reach its conclusions sooner," he said.

The flight by Iran Airtour, which is affiliated with Iran's national air carrier - was arriving from Bandar Abbas on Iran's southern coast.

The craft was a Russian-made Tupolev 154. A Tu-154 owned by Russia's Pulkovo Airlines crashed in Ukraine on Aug. 22 while en route from a Russian resort to St. Petersburg, killing all 170 people on board.

In 2002, a Russian-made Tu-154 - also operated by Iran Airtour - crashed in the mountains of western Iran, killing all 119 people aboard.

[Last modified September 2, 2006, 01:23:22]