An Iranian military plane heading towards the southern city of Shiraz crashed soon after takeoff at Mehrabad International Airport on Monday, the official Iranian news agency IRNA reported.
The plane, an Antonov-74, was owned by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). All those on board the plane, including 35 members of the IRGC and three staff members, were killed in the crash.
This is the third time an IRGC plane has crashed in the past 12 months. On December 6, 2005, a small Falcon Jet (C130) aircraft fell near Oroumieh, 560 miles north-west of the capital Tehran. The plane carried on board the head of the IRGC’s ground forces and more than 10 other officers. One month earlier, a military transport plane crashed in Tehran, killing 128 people. It came down in a residential area, hitting a 10-story apartment building.
Iran’s Aviation Organization announced on October this year, that the United States was going to help Iran in repairing the engines of its Airbus passenger plane fleet. A few days earlier, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice announced that the U.S. Treasury Department had issued the required permits for the supply of spare parts and maintenance services needed by Iran’s Airbus passenger planes. In its communiqué, the U.S. State Department said it ignored its sanctions against Iran in this respect due to humanitarian concerns.