Tehran - All 168 people on board were killed when an Iranian airliner crashed shortly after take-off from Tehran Wednesday, a ministry official confirmed. There were no survivors when the Caspian Airlines plane with 153 passengers and 15 crew aboard crashed in Qazvin province north-west of Tehran, a Health Ministry spokesman told IRIB radio.
The fully-laden three-engined plane was on a flight from Tehran to Yerevan, Armenia, when it crashed 16 minutes after take-off in Takestan in Qazvin province.
There were no immediate indications of the cause of the crash, media reports said. Among those killed where members of the Iranian youth judo team.
All those aboard had such severe burn injuries that identification would be very difficult, provincial police chief Massud Jafarnassab was quoted as saying.
IRIB reported that wreckage was found hundreds of metres from the main point of impact. No one on the ground was injured.
