Alwaght- A Ukrainian Boeing 737 passenger plane bound for Kiev with 176 people on board has crashed shortly after take-off from the international airport south of the Iranian capital, Tehran. All those aboard were killed.
Ali Khashani, a senior public relations official at the Imam Khomeini International Airport, said the Boeing 737 operated by the Ukraine International Airlines (UIA, went down early Wednesday in the vicinity of Parand, a city in Robat Karim County, Tehran Province.
The plane caught fire after crashing.
According to Kashani, the crash was likely due to technical problems.
Later, Kashani announced that all the 160 passengers and nine crew members of the plane had died in the crash, according to IRNA.
Rescue teams have been sent to the site of the crash, said Reza Jafarzadeh, a spokesman for Iran’s Civil Aviation Organization.
The head of Iran’s Emergency Medical Services, Pir-Hossein Koulivand, later confirmed to Tasnim news agency that all those on board had been killed.
Koulivand said the fire had been extinguished and emergency crews were now collecting bodies.
