A plane carrying 60 passengers and six crew crashed in a mountainous region of central Iran on Sunday, with everyone on board feared dead, state media reported. The cause of the incident is being investigated.
The ATR-72 plane operated by Aseman Airlines was flying to southwestern city of Yasuj when it went down near the town of Semirom in Isfahan Province after vanishing from radar screens roughly 50 minutes after taking off from Tehran's Mehrabad airport, according to IRNA.
Mohammad Taqi Tabatabai, a spokesman for Aseman Airlines, told state television that one child was among the passengers.
Leader of Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei and a number of senior officials offered condolences to the families of those who perished in the air crash.
"Officials in charge must make every effort and cooperate to take the necessary measures in this regard," the Leader wrote in a message published by his official website.
Special Commission
President Hassan Rouhani tasked Roads and Urban Development Minister Abbas Akhoundi with forming a committee to investigate what caused the crash of the twin-engine turboprop, which is used for short-distance regional flying.
Thick fog shrouding the mountainous terrain had made it difficult for rescue helicopters to land at the crash site in the Zagros Mountains, and relief workers were trying to search the area by land.
The ATR 72 involved in the crash on Sunday, a French-Italian aircraft, was introduced in the late 1980s. The Aseman Airlines fleet's aircraft were delivered as of 1993.
Ageing Fleet
Iran's commercial passenger aircraft fleet has aged under decades of international sanctions, which have long prevented it from buying new aircraft or spare parts from the West. The country has suffered a string of plane crashes in the past few decades.
In 2014, 40 people were killed when a locally built passenger plane crashed after take-off from Mehrabad airport on a flight to Tabas in northeast Iran, which once again raised questions about the safety of an aviation sector hobbled by sanctions.
In 2011, 79 people were killed when a Boeing 727 passenger plane crashed in bad weather in northwestern Iran just before landing at the airport in the city of Orumiyeh.
Following the 2015 landmark deal with world powers and the lifting of nuclear sanctions, Iran signed several deals with Airbus, Boeing, and ATR to buy scores of passenger planes.
However, according to western media, US President Donald Trump's hawkish new approach toward Tehran, coupled with banking worries and domestic political turbulence in both countries, are causing growing uncertainty over the deals.
