Shahedshahr, Iran — A Ukrainian airliner carrying 176 people crashed Wednesday shortly after takeoff from Tehran’s main airport, killing all on board, Iranian state TV and Ukrainian officials said.
The plane had taken off from Imam Khomeini International Airport in the Iranian capital when one of its engines caught fire, said Qassem Biniaz, a spokesman for Iran’s Road and Transportation Ministry. The pilot then lost control of the plane and it crashed, Biniaz said, according to the state-run IRNA news agency.
The Reuters news service reported that it burst into flames.
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“The fire is so heavy that we cannot (do) any rescue. … We have 22 ambulances, four bus ambulances and a helicopter at the site,” Reuters quoted Pirhossein Koulivand, head of Iran’s emergency services, as telling Iranian state television.
Flight data from the airport showed a Boeing 737-800 flown by Ukraine International Airlines took off Wednesday morning heading for Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, then stopped sending data almost immediately afterward, according to website FlightRadar24.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said there were no survivors extended his condolences to the families of the victims. The country’s prime minister, Oleksiy Honcharuk, confirmed the casualty toll.
Zelenskiy was vacationing in Oman but was going to return to Kyiv immediately.
“Our task is to establish the cause of the crash of the Boeing and provide all necessary help to the families of the victims,” said Ukraine’s parliament speaker, Dmytro Razumkov, in a Facebook statement.
Citing initial information, the Ukrainian Embassy in Tehran said the plane had suffered engine failure and the crash wasn’t caused by “terrorism,” according to Reuters. It added that Iranian TV said the crash was caused by technical problems.
Reuters said Iranian TV reported that one ot the plane’s two “black boxes” was found.
The plane was carrying 167 passengers and nine crew members, Biniaz said.
Iranian TV said 32 of those on the flight were foreigners, Reuters reported.
The majority of the passengers were Iranian nationals, Russia’s RIA Novosti agency reported, citing Iranian authorities. Staff at the Boryspil airport in Kyiv, where the plane was headed, told The Associated Press passengers on that flight are usually Iranian students coming back to Ukraine after winter holidays.
Associated Press journalists who reached the crash site saw a wide field of debris scattered across farmland. The dead lay among shattered pieces of the aircraft. Rescuers in masks shouted over the noise of hovering helicopters as they worked.
The crash came hours after Iran launched a ballistic missile attack targeting two bases in Iraq housing U.S. forces in retaliation for the killing of Revolutionary Guard Gen. Qassem Soleimani.
The Boeing 737-800 is a very common single-aisle, twin-engine jetliner used for short to medium-range flights. Thousands of the planes are used by carriers around the world.
Introduced in the late 1990s, it is an older model than the Boeing 737 MAX, which has been grounded for nearly 10 months following two deadly crashes.
A number of 737-800 aircraft have been involved in deadly accidents over the years.
In March 2016, a Flydubai 737-800 from Dubai crashed while trying to land at Rostov-on-Don airport in Russia, killing 62 onboard. Another 737-800 flight from Dubai, operated by Air India Express, crashed in May 2010 while trying to land in Mangalore, India, killing more than 150 onboard.
Chicago-based Boeing Co. said it was “aware of the media reports out of Iran” and was “gathering more information.”
Boeing, like other airline manufacturers, typically assists in crash investigations. However, that effort in this case could be affected by the U.S. sanctions campaign against Iran in place since President Trump unilaterally withdrew from Tehran’s nuclear deal with world powers in May 2018.
Both Airbus and Boeing had been in line to sell billions of dollars of aircraft to Iran over the deal, which saw Tehran limit its enrichment of uranium in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions. But Trump’s decision halted the sales.
Under decades of international sanctions, Iran’s commercial passenger aircraft fleet has aged, with air accidents occurring regularly for domestic carriers in recent years, resulting in hundreds of casualties.
