39 killed in Iranian military plane crash

TEHRAN—An Iranian military plane crashed shortly after takeoff at Tehran’s Mehrabad airport killing all 39 people on board, including 30 members of the Revolutionary Guards, police said.
High ranking Iranian police commander, Eskandar Moemeni, told the Fars news agency that three people who initially survived the crash of the Antonov 74 died on their way to hospital. “An engine failure and veering from the runway resulted in the crash,” he said.
The chief commander of the Islamic republic’s Revolutionary Guards, General Yahya Rahim Safavi, did not rule out sabotage but added it was “too soon to elaborate on the cause of the crash until the investigations are over.” A Revolutionary Guards commander in charge of security of Iranian airports, Ahmad Haghtalab, said the black box which could help determine the cause of the accident had still to be recovered. “(The plane) crashed at the end of the runway, at 7:12 local time (0342 GMT) and burst into flames,” he said. The director of the airport confirmed to state television that there had been no survivors. He said the plane was heading for Shiraz in the south of Iran. Iran’s Revolutionary Guards are the Islamic regime’s ideological army.—Agencies