Black boxes recovered from Iran plane crash

TEHRAN – Investigators have recovered two black boxes belonging to a Russian-made jetliner that crashed shortly after taking off from Tehran, Iran’s state radio reported yesterday.

All 168 people aboard the Caspian Airlines aircraft bound for Yerevan, Armenia, on Wednesday were killed.The radio’s report quoted chief investigator Ahmad Majidi as saying one of the two recovered boxes was damaged. It said the boxes – the plane’s cockpit voice and flight data recorders – would likely be sent to the aircraft’s Russian manufacturers for analysis.It was not immediately known what caused the plane to crash, but witnesses said the plane’s tail was on fire before it went down nose first, plowing a deep, long trench into agricultural fields outside the village of Jannat Abad, and the aircraft was blasted to bits.Bodies of the victims were taken in ambulances to Tehran yesterday for identification, Majidi said.The crash was the latest in a string of air disasters in recent years that have highlighted Iran’s difficulties in maintaining its aging fleet of planes. Iranian airlines, including state-run ones, are chronically strapped for cash, and maintenance has suffered, experts say.US sanctions prevent Iran from updating its 30-year-old American aircraft and make it difficult to get European spare parts or planes. The country has come to rely on Russian aircraft, many of them Soviet-era planes that are harder to get parts for since the Soviet Union’s fall.A team of Russian air accident experts was due to arrive in Iran today to help in the investigation of the latest crash, civil aviation spokesman Reza Jafarzadeh told the semi-official news agency ISNA.Majidi and Jafarzadeh said they were looking for a third black box, but it was not clear what the third unit recorded. Black boxes, built to survive crashes and intense fires, record a plane’s performance, like speed and altitude, as well as communications between the cockpit crew or with air traffic controllers.Most of the passengers were Iranians, including 42 from Iran’s large ethnic Armenian community, as well as 11 members of Iran’s national youth judo team.Five Armenian citizens were among the dead, Armenia’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement, along with two Georgians, including a staffer from the Caucasus nation’s embassy in Yerevan.Armenia yesterday announced a one-day national state of mourning to mark the death of its citizens in the crash. Flags were flying at half-mast on government buildings and Armenian embassies abroad. Local radio and TV have cancelled entertainment programmes in a show of respect.At the site of the crash on Wednesday, flaming wreckage, body parts and personal items were strewn over a 200-metre area. Firefighters put out blazes from the crash, but smoke smoldered from the pit for hours after as emergency workers searched for the data recorders and other clues to the cause.- Nampa-AP