A Russian-made Iranian passenger plane carrying 157 passengers and 13 crew crash landed in northeastern Iran on Sunday injuring at least 46 people, state television reported. The broadcast quoted Iran's civil aviation spokesman, Reza Jafarzadeh, as saying that no one was killed in the accident. He gave no indication of what might have caused the accident. The Taban Air plane caught fire upon landing at Mashhad airport at 7:20 a.m. local time (0350 GMT). The injured have been taken to hospitals in Mashhad, the report added. Jafarzadeh said the Tupolev plane initially took off from Abadan airport in southwestern Iran Saturday evening but landed in Isfahan, central Iran, because of bad weather in Mashhad, its destination. «The plane took off from Isfahan airport at 5:35 a.m. local time Sunday ... Despite bad weather and minimum visibility, the pilot made an emergency landing because a passenger was ill. But the incident then happened during landing,» he said. The Associated Press quoted Jafarzadeh as saying that the plane was seriously damaged. State television added that part of the aircraft had burned and the left wing and undercarriage were torn off.
