Digging Into Iran's Latest Plane Crash

TEHRAN, IRAN - FEBRUARY 18. Relatives of passengers on board the crashed passenger plane mourn at Mehrabad International Airport in Tehran, Iran on February 18, 2018.

An Iranian passenger plane with 66 people on board crashed in central Iran according to local media. The Aseman Airlines plane flying from Tehran to the south-western city of Yasuj went down in a mountainous area in Semirom district in Isfahan province, Iran's Emergency Department said in a statement.

Heshmat Alavi

Forbes, February 22, 2018 - On Sunday, February 18th, Flight No. 3704 of Aseman Airlines, Iran's 3rd airline company with a fleet of 29 planes, left Tehran's Mehrabad International Airport at 8:03 am local time, heading for Yasuj. The plane, with 66 aboard, including six crew, never reached its destination, crashing into a mountainous region near the town of Semirom, close to Isfahan, south-central Iran.

All on board were confirmed perished as rescuers reached the site on foot at an altitude of around 4,000 meters (4,375 yards) after authorities failed to land a helicopter failed on the snowy mountain.

  

 

Such a crash in any ordinary country prompts hurried measures to save even one life. Iran is no ordinary country.

 

Many questions and concerns are circling since the crash, especially since Iran's regime is not known for its transparency.

 

1) Why did authorities rush to announce all passengers dead before the crash site was found?

One family member of a crash victim was seen weeping and saying she was at the mountain and no rescue team was sent. They called from the crash site and said we are alive, she added.

 2) If weather conditions grounded helicopters and prevented search and rescue teams to rush to the scene instantly, why was the flight given a green light?

Bad weather disrupted several Tehran flights on Sunday, according to the state-run IRNA news agency.

Authorities at Abadan International Airport in southwestern Iran were also forced to ground two domestic flights due to pollution that severely reduced visibility to literally two meters.

Iranian MP Mohammad Damadi has reportedly said mismanagement in Aseman Airlines can be one of the reasons behind the crash, adding the Weather Forecast Organization had warned of dangerous conditions around the mountainous area.

Damadi adds many Aseman Airlines pilots had filed complaints & more than 30 very capable pilots had resigned due to mismanagement.

3) Human error is also ruled out. The flight pilot, Hojatollah Fooled, successfully landed a similar plane despite an engine problem in 2013, according to an Aseman Airline Instagram post, adding Fooled was 'very experienced.'

'On a previous flight from Yasuj to Tehran in 2013 he had an issue where the second engine of the ATR72 went out,' the post adds. 'But he managed to land the plane safely at Yasuj airport.'

4) The translation of this Farsi tweet reads: 'Aseman Airlines did not provide the budget needed for the ELT system on this plane. The system went inactive. Only a few planes flying abroad have the ELT system active. ILNA'

This text is citing the state-run Iran Labor news agency.

 ELTs are emergency transmitters carried aboard most general aviation aircraft in the world today. These devices are designed to transmit a distress signal in the event of an aircraft incident.

5) Only one drone was deployed in the aftermath of the crash, according to CNN. This raises concerns as Iran is currently in the middle of a regional crisis of a drone being downed by Israeli air force after flying from Syria into that country's airspace. How is it that Tehran has the budget to provide capable drones to take on such sensitive missions abroad and yet its rescue teams lack the means to carry out their duties?

6) This plane was grounded for seven years to undergo repairs and overhaul, according to the The Guardian. Furthermore, Aseman Airlines flights are banned to enter the European Union due to safety reasons. Why was this plane suddenly allowed into service only months ago?

To add insult to injury, Iranian news website Roozarooz reported the aircraft suffered “technical problems midair during a recent flight a few weeks ago” and had to make an emergency landing, according to The New York Post.

Questions regarding the ATR-72 planes' suitability to fly over mountainous regions are already raised in various reports.

In an interview with EuroNews on Wednesday, ATR spokesman David Vargas said Iran has not purchased this company's new generation planes available since 2011. The Tehran-Yasuj plane was an old generation plane, he added.

7) Iranian MP Mohammad Reza Tabesh, linked to the parliament's environment faction, made remarks indicating a number of environment/natural resources experts, who in recent weeks had defended the work of such activists, lost their lives in this crash.

 

This follows the mysterious death of Iranian-Canadian environment expert Kavoos Seyed Emami.

Moreover, from 1989 to this day Iran has been home to 31 air incidents, 17 being severely fatal accidents where at least a dozen passengers lost their lives. By comparison, in the same timeframe UK airlines witnessed only two air crashes resulting in 12 or more fatalities.

In 2009, a Caspian Airlines Tupolev TM-154 experienced a bird strike and crashed, killing 168 on board.

In 2011, an Iran Air Boeing 727 crashed in north-western Iran en route to Armenia, killing 78 people.

Iran's most recent case was in 2014, when a Sepahan Airlines flight crashed near Tehran minutes after taking off, killing 40 passengers.

 

Iran also has a long history of such disasters and failing to take necessary measures, including the February 2004 Neishabur train crash in northeast Iran; the January 2017 Plasco building fire in Tehran; the November 2017 Kermanshah earthquake and the January 2018 Sanchi oil tanker sinking in the East China Sea.

More disturbing is how Iran's regime takes advantage of such disasters to divert attention from its own calamites. The recent Aseman Airline crash came just in time to cloak reports about the Dervish Gonabadi protest in Tehran and the mysterious 'suicide' of Prof. Emami while in detention.

 

This entire crisis is arriving as internal feuds are flaring with former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his deputy, Hamid Baghai, daring to make strong remarks against the country's judiciary, known to be highly influenced by Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.

The regime leader has also been forced to acknowledge increasing criticism from the people targeting his ruling apparatus, and even him personally. This is a significant turn of events in Iranian politics.

Parallel to all this is the brewing friction Tehran is experiencing in the region, especially as its future interests in Syria seem threatened.

The United Nations has recently filed a damning report about Iran's involvement in the Yemen and providing ballistic missiles to the Houthi militia. And Iraq, another country where Iran has invested billions in, will be entering parliamentary elections in three months. The result of this poll will prove crucial for Iran's future in the region, especially considering that Obama is gone and President Donald Trump is in office in Washington.

The end result looks very grim for Tehran, both domestically & on the world stage.

I am a political/rights activist focusing on Iran & the Middle East. I also write in Al Arabiya English, and contributed to The Federalist, The Hill and Raddington Report. I tweet @HeshmatAlavi