Witness: Iran jet’s tail in flames before crash
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 | Plane crash in Iran A Russian-made Iranian passenger plane crashed shortly after takeoff Wednesday, smashing into a field northwest of the capital and shattering into flaming pieces, killing all 168 on board. |
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Failed emergency landing
Serob Karapetian, the chief of Yerevan airport's aviation security service, said the plane may have attempted an emergency landing, but reports that it caught fire in the air were "only one version." He did not elaborate. A police officer told Iran's semi-official ISNA news agency that several witnesses reported seeing the plane's tail on fire.
The Tupolev's three engines are in its tail section. The flames there could indicate "an uncontained engine failure," said Patrick Smith, a pilot and the air travel and safety writer for Salon.com.
But he said it's too early to tell. The crash's root cause could be elsewhere, and the flames a sign of a compressor stall caused when the plane went out of control, interrupting airflow through the engine, Smith said.
The crash is Iran's worst since February 2003, when a Russian-made Ilyushin 76 carrying members of the elite Revolutionary Guards crashed in the mountains of southeastern Iran, killing 302 people aboard. That crash was a sign of how maintenance problems have also affected Iran's military.
Caspian Airlines is an Iranian-Russian private joint venture founded in 1993, with a fleet of Tu-154s built between 1989 and 1993. Russia produced 900 Tu-154s until production was halted in 1996.
Concerns over maitenance
The average age of Iran's fleet of aircraft is 22 years, said Masoud Mohajer, an aviation expert in Tehran. Age itself may not be a problem — even older jets are in service around the world — but keeping them maintained is. Mohajer said Iranian airlines can't afford to keep even Russian planes in shape because of lack of government support.
He pointed to "the financial inability to buy new planes or carry out maintenance requirements."
"Iranian airliners don't have enough cash even to buy new Russian planes. The government controls ticket prices. It's not profitable for airliners," Mohajer said.
Some of the jets in Iran's fleet are U.S.-made craft bought before the 1979 Islamic Revolution, which led to a cut-off in ties between the nations. U.S. sanctions since prevent Iran from buying parts for those planes or new ones.
In December 2005, 115 people were killed when a pre-1979 U.S.-made C-130 plane, crashed into a 10-story building near Tehran's Mehrabad airport.
Sanctions interfere with safety
The sanctions also bar sales of European jets with a certain amount of U.S. parts, limiting Iran's ability to buy from Europe.
As a result, Iran has focused on Russian-built planes — like the Tupolev and Ilyushins, the Soviet-era workhorses for Russian civil air fleets. After the Soviet collapse, government funding sharply declined for manufacturers of aircraft and spare parts, and other countries using the planes have had a harder time getting parts.
There have been two other fatal crashes involving Tu-154s in Iran since 2002 that killed 128 people.
"There is a big question about the availability of spares for aircraft generally in Iran," said Chris Yates, a Britain-based aviation analyst. The Iranians may have turned to buying spares produced locally or from the black market, he said.
Smith said Russian aircraft suffer from a somewhat undeserved bad reputation — their "less impressive" record is in part because they have historically been used in harsher environments than Western models, like arctic areas, and by airlines in developing countries where safety standards aren't as strict.
"The plane is only as safe as how it's operated and maintained and how well trained its crewmembers are," he said.
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