Tehran, January 11: Iran held a funeral ceremony Tuesday for the victims of Sunday’s air crash near the airport of the northwestern city of Orumiyeh, a media report said.
Iran’s Coroner Organisation said 77 of the people on board were killed and 27 injured in the accident.
Tuesday’s funeral ceremony was held in the capital city of the West Azerbaijan province and local officials, relatives of the victims and local residents took part, Xinhua reported citing Press TV.
On Sunday, the Boeing-727, belonging to state-owned Iran Air, took off from Tehran’s Mehrabad airport at 1800 hours (1430 GMT) and crashed at 1945 hours (1615 GMT) near a village, 15 km from Orumiyeh.
The plane was heading for the runway to land but was forced to abort landing due to inclement weather. The aircraft then disappeared from the radar and crashed in a farmland after making a second attempt to land.
A report by Mehr news agency quoted the political deputy of West Azerbaijan governor, Ebrahim Fathollahi, as saying that in his last conversation with the control tower, the pilot said his plane had a technical problem.
The General Inspection Organisation has dispatched a team of experts to launch an investigation into the deadly plane crash.
This was one of the worst air accidents in Iran.
In February 2003, a Russian-made Ilyushin 76 crashed in the mountains in southeastern Iran, killing 302 people on board.
In July 2009, a Caspian Airlines plane crashed near the northwestern city of Qazvin, killing all 168 people on board.
–Agencies