Alwaght- All 11 people on board a private Turkish plane were feared dead on Sunday after it crashed on an Iranian mountainside while flying from Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates to the Turkish city of Istanbul.
The Turkish jet suddenly disappeared from the radar while passing through Iran's airspace and crashed near the Iranian city of Shahrekord in Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari Province Sunday evening, IRNA quoted the spokesman for Iran's Civil Aviation Organization Reza Jafarzadeh as saying.
Media reports indicate he plane was owned by Turkey’s Basaran Holding. Those on board included the daughter of the firm’s owner, businessman Huseyin Basaran, and seven of her friends. She was due to be married next month, Turkish news agency DHA said.
Mojtaba Khaledi, the spokesman of the country’s emergency management organization, said that the plane hit a mountain near Shahr-e Kord and burst into flames.
He later said that local villagers had reached the site in the Zagros Mountains and found 11 badly burned bodies in the wreckage. DNA tests would be needed to identify the dead.
Turkey's private Dogan News Agency identified the plane as a Bombardier CL604, tail number TC-TRB.
Basaran Investment Holding is active in the food, finance, energy, construction, tourism and travel industries, according to the company’s website.
The spokesman of Iran's Foreign Ministry expressed the country’s profound condolences over the incident.
Bahram Qassemi said several rescue groups had been immediately dispatched to the site of the Turkish plane crash and are reaching there despite extremely severe weather conditions in the crash area.
Shahr-e Kord is some 230 miles (370 kilometers) south of the capital, Tehran. Emergency crews were attempting to reach the crash site but the terrain was mountainous, making their approach difficult.
