اردو
  • IRGC says choppers spotted crashed plane wreckage

    IRGC says choppers spotted crashed plane wreckage File photo IRGC says choppers spotted crashed plane wreckage

    Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) says its helicopters have spotted the wreckage of a missing Aseman Airliner that crashed with 66 people on board in the country’s mountainous southwest on Sunday.

    IRGC spokesman Brigadier General Ramezan Sharif made the announcement on Tuesday, Tasnim news agency reported.

    An official of the Iranian Red Crescent Society (IRCS) had said earlier that 80 search teams were conducting an operation at Mount Dena in the Zagros mountain range after weather conditions improved.

    Four IRCS helicopters were also flying over the region as part of efforts to find the crash site, he added.

    Iran’s Air Force F-14 fighter jets also started flying over Dena Mount while army parachutists and commandos along with mount climbers continued the ground search and rescue operations.

    The Aseman Airlines ATR-72 plane was flying from the Iranian capital, Tehran, to the southwestern city of Yasuj on Sunday when it disappeared 50 minutes into the flight around the town of Semirom in Isfahan Province.

    Meanwhile, the Isfahan Province emergency center said that a mobile phone had transmitted signals from a location near Mount Dena where helicopters did not manage to reach the previous day due to bad weather.

    Mohammad Javad Azari Jahromi, Iran’s Minister of Information and Communications Technology, also confirmed that the mobile phone of one of the passengers had been on after the crash and was sending signals from an area near the village of Kohangan.

    An official at Iran Civil Aviation Organization said that the pilot had not declared an emergency situation and that the plane’s Emergency locator transmitter (ELT) had not transmitted signals after the incident.