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Iranian Military Plane Crashes; 119 Dead

Posted on: Tuesday, 6 December 2005, 09:00 CST

By ALI AKBAR DAREINI

TEHRAN, Iran - An Iranian military transport plane crashed into a 10-story apartment building in the suburbs of the capital Tuesday, killing at least 119 people, according to state media and Tehran's mayor. Police said wreckage from the plane also hit a gasoline station.

All 94 passengers and crew of the plane were killed, Mayor Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf told The Associated Press.

Tehran state radio said that of the building's residents, 25 people were killed and 15 were injured.

Firefighters managed to put out the fire in the building, which was damaged and charred but still standing. The plane's wreckage was scattered around the building, which police cordoned off.

"It was like an earthquake," said Reza Sadeqi, a 25-year-old merchant, who saw the plane hit the building. "The force of the crash threw me about 3 meters (9 feet) inside my shop.

"I felt the heat of the fire caused by the crash. It was like being in hell," he said.

The C-130 aircraft struck the building while trying to return to Tehran's Mehrabad airport, state television reported. The building is in the Towhid residential complex, a series of high-rise apartment buildings for army personnel.

Thousands of people gathered at the crash site. Many screamed for fear that their relatives had been killed.

The plane, which belonged to the army air force, carried 84 passengers and 10 crew members, Iranian television reported. The official Islamic Republic News Agency said the passengers were journalists who were going to cover a military maneuver in southern Iran.

The flight had taken off from Mehrabad airport en route to Bandar Abbas, a port city in southern Iran. The plane crashed due to a technical failure as it was trying to return to Tehran and make an emergency landing, the television said.

In April, an Iranian airlines Boeing 707 with 157 people aboard skidded off a runway at Tehran airport and caught fire, killing three people. Last year, a Ukrainian-built aircraft carrying aerospace scientists crashed in central Iran, killing all 44 people aboard.

In 2003, a Russian-made Ilyushin-76 carrying members of the elite Revolutionary Guards crashed in the mountains of southeastern Iran, killing 302 people. And in 1988, an Iran Air A300 Airbus was shot down by USS Vincennes over the Persian Gulf, killing 290.

Source: Associated Press/AP Online

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