(15 Jul 2009) SHOTLIST
1. Wide of control tower at Yerevan airport
2. Wide of plane on tarmac
3. Close of electronic information board at airport
4. Wide of people inside airport terminal
5. Men crying
6. Woman talking on phone, crying
7. Men looking at names of dead passengers
8. Close of list of dead passengers
9. Women taking care of man
10. SOUNDBITE: (Armenian) Arlen Davudyan, Caspian Airline representative in Yerevan:
"There were 168 passengers on board, among them were 151 adults, 2 children and 15 crew members. We do not have the exact information about their citizenship. We will announce it later."
11. Medical staff helping man getting into ambulance
12. Ambulance leaving
STORYLINE
Relatives of passengers on board the crashed Caspian flight gathered in Yerevan airport on Wednesday, hours after the Russian-made aircraft smashed into a field northwest of the Iranian capital and shattered into flaming pieces.
All 168 passengers on board were killed in Iran's worst air disaster in six years, officials said.
The Caspian Airlines Tu-154M jet had taken off from Tehran's Imam Khomeini International Airport on Wednesday morning and was headed to the Armenian capital Yerevan.
It crashed at 11:30 am (0700gmt) about 16 minutes after takeoff near the village of Jannat Abad outside the city of Qazvin, around 75 miles northwest of Tehran, Iran's civil aviation spokesman told state media.
At Yerevan's airport, relatives were crying and mourning for their loved ones.
The cause of the crash was not immediately known.
An Iranian aviation police official said emergency workers were searching for the plane's data recorders to understand what may have caused the crash.
Civil aviation authorities of both countries said there were 153 passengers and 15 crew members on board the plane.
Most of the passengers were Iranians, many of them from Iran's large ethnic Armenian community, along with six Armenian citizens and two Georgian citizens.
The two Georgians included a staffer from the Caucasus nation's embassy in Yerevan, Georgia's military attache in the Armenian capital said.
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 official told Iran's semi-official ISNA news agency that several witnesses reported seeing the plane's tail on fire in the air as it circled to find a place to land.
The impact blasted a deep trench in the dirt field, which was littered with smoking wreckage, body parts and personal items from the Tupolev jet, according to photos from the scene.
Firefighters put out the flaming wreckage, which officials said was strewn over a 200 yard (metre) area.
Iran has seen numerous crashes in recent years, usually blamed on poor maintenance.
Iranian officials often blame US sanctions that prevent it from updating American aircraft bought before the 1979 Islamic revolution and make it difficult to get European spare parts or planes as well.
Iranian airlines and the military have turned increasingly to Russian aircraft, which are not affected by sanctions, but have seen a string of accidents.
Two other Tupolev crashes in Iran this decade have killed nearly 140 people.
Find out more about AP Archive: [ Ссылка ]
Twitter: [ Ссылка ]
Facebook: [ Ссылка ]
Instagram: [ Ссылка ]
You can license this story through AP Archive: [ Ссылка ]
