Iran locates wreckage of crashed plane

The Iranian authorities on Tuesday located the wreckage of a passenger plane that crashed in the mountainous central province of Isfahan, killing all 66 people on board.

Helicopters belonging to Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) discovered the crash site on Dena mountain, two days after the plane went down due to bad weather on Sunday, IRGC spokesman Brigadier General Ramezan Sharif announced.

In the photos taken by the IRGC helicopters, the logo of the crashed plane was clearly visible on the broken piece, Sharif said.

Also, an official responsible for rescue and relief in the Iranian Red Crescent, Morteza Salimi, confirmed that the crash site had been spotted.

Search and rescue teams were dispatched to the site, IRNA news agency reported. The state IRIB TV said that some 100 mountaineers were climbing to the location of the accident.

The Aseman Airlines passenger plane crashed near Semirom, south of Isfahan province, when it was flying from Tehran to Yasouj on Sunday.

On Tuesday, the Isfahan province emergency centre said that a mobile phone of one of the passengers had transmitted signals from a location near Mount Dena where helicopters did not manage to reach due to bad weather, Press TV reported.

An official at the Iran Civil Aviation Organisation said that the pilot had not declared an emergency situation and the plane's Emergency Locator Transmitter had not transmitted signals after the incident.

Official reports confirmed that all 66 on board were killed in the air crash.

--IANS

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