Iran grounds airline’s ATR planes after crash

TIL Desk/World/Tehran/ Iran’s civil aviation organisation has grounded ATR planes belonging to Aseman Airlines after one of them crashed this week with 66 people on board, state television reported today.

The measure is temporary as authorities investigate the cause of Sunday’s accident, which saw an ATR-72 twin-engine plane, in service since 1993, crash in Iran’s Zagros mountains.

Aseman, which is banned from flying in the European Union, operates five ATR-72s, according to the company’s website. Flight EP3704 disappeared from radar around 45 minutes after taking off from Tehran on a domestic flight. No survivors have been found.

The wreckage of the ATR, which is part-owned by Europe’s Airbus, was discovered at a height of around 4,000 metres (13,000 feet) in the Dena range but bad weather has hampered recovery efforts.

Helicopters have been unable to access the site and an operation to bring bodies down the mountain on foot has been suspended until Monday. The plane’s “black box” flight recorders have also not yet been recovered.