The ATR-72 twin-engine turboprop, in service for 25 years, left the capital around 0800 (0430 GMT) and was heading toward the city of Yasouj, some 500 kilometers (300 miles) to the south. The regional plane smashed into the Zagros Mountains near its destination

Officials said emergency teams were struggling to locate the wreckage in blizzard conditions.

“After searching the area, we learned that unfortunately … our dear passengers had lost their lives,” Tabatabaei said. “This plane had 60 passengers, 59 adults and one child, as well as a pilot, a copilot, two flight attendants and two air marshals on board.”

Due to foggy condition, rescue helicopters couldn’t reach the crash site in the Zagros Mountains. Tabatabaei said the plane crashed into Mount Dena, which is about 4,400 meters (14,435 feet) tall.

Jalal Pouranfar, regional head for Iran’s emergency services, said rescue and relief teams had been sent to the possible area of the crash.

Seyyed Nour-Mohammad Mousavi, head of the local Red Crescent office, said a drone had been dispatched to help find the wreckage.

A total of 120 people from 30 different emergency teams were sent to help with the search, another Red Crescent official said.

Locals described hearing the crash, though no one had found the crash site yet.

 Leader, president offer condolences

 Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei and President Hassan Rouhani expressed sympathy with the bereaved families and offered their condolences to the people of Iran.

Ayatollah Khamenei said the news had “left our hearts overwhelmed with sadness and sorrow”.

The Leader urged authorities to exert all efforts required by them in the aftermath of the accident, and ensure the honorable interment of the victims.

Rouhani ordered the Transport Ministry to set up a crisis group to investigate the crash and coordinate efforts.

A man who missed the doomed flight told reporters of his mixed emotions.

“God has been really kind to me but I am so sad from the bottom of my heart for all those dear ones who lost their lives,” said the unnamed man.

Decades of sanctions have left Iran’s airlines with ageing fleet of passenger planes which they have struggled to maintain and modernize.

Aseman Airlines, owned by Iran’s civil service pension foundation, is a semi-private air carrier headquartered in Tehran that specializes in flights to remote airfields across the country. It also flies internationally. It is Iran’s third-largest airline by fleet size, behind state carrier Iran Air and Mahan Air.

The carrier has a fleet of 29 aircraft, including six ATR aircraft, according to FlightRadar24, a plane-tracking website. The ATR-72 that crashed Sunday had been built in 1993, Aseman Airlines CEO Ali Abedzadeh said.

A spokesman for ATR, which is part-owned by Europe’s Airbus, told AFP the company was “researching the details” of Sunday’s crash.

Aseman Airlines has suffered other major crashes with fatalities. In October 1994, a twin-propeller Fokker F-28 1000 commuter plane flown by the airline crashed near Natanz, 290 kilometers (180 miles) south of Tehran, also killing 66 people on board. An Aseman Airlines chartered flight in August 2008, flown by an Itek Air Boeing 737, crashed in Kyrgyzstan, killing 74 people.

Iran has suffered multiple aviation disasters, most recently in 2014 when a Sepahan Airlines plane crashed killing 39 people just after takeoff from Tehran, narrowly avoiding many more deaths when it plummeted near a busy market.

Lifting sanctions on aviation purchases was a key clause in the nuclear deal Iran signed with world powers in 2015.

In April 2017, ATR sealed a $536-million sale with Iran Air for at least 20 aircraft. Chicago-based Boeing also signed a three-billion-dollar deal that month to sell 30 737 MAX aircraft to Aseman Airlines with an option to buy 30 more.

However, the sale could be scuppered if US President Donald Trump chooses to reimpose sanctions in the coming months, as he has threatened to do.

The US Treasury Department, which must approve aviation sales to Iran, has done so for 80 Boeing jets destined for national carrier Iran Air as well as 100 Airbus planes for Iran Air.

The first few Airbus jets have already arrived in Tehran.

AFP, AP and Press TV contributed to this story.

Source:iran-daily.com