| CNN's report on this incident
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110 killed in Iran plane crash
TEHRAN, Iran (CNN) -- An Iranian military transport plane has crashed near Tehran after hitting a 10-story apartment building, killing at least 110 people -- most of them aboard the plane -- Iranian officials and state-run media reported.
The air force C-130 -- carrying more than 90 people -- crashed at about 2 p.m. (1030 GMT) on Tuesday, sparking fires in the apartment building that houses military personnel and their families.
Everyone on board the plane was killed, including 47 journalists who planned to witness the Iranian navy's maneuvers in the Persian Gulf, officials said.
A health ministry spokesman said 110 bodies had been taken to hospitals near the crash site in the town of Towid, south of the capital.
"Both the main and reserve fuel tanks were full which is why the plane went up in flames as soon as it hit the building," Ahmad Ziaie, the head of Iran's fire brigade told state television, Reuters reported.
The building that was hit and others around it were immediately evacuated after the crash.
An Interior Ministry spokesman told Reuters that several people had been killed on the ground. The spokesman added that many of them had been in their cars at the time of the crash.
The plane was heading for the port city of Bandar Abbas in southern Iran when the pilot reported technical difficulties and was returning to base, according to Abdul Rahimi with Iran's civil aviation authority.
It crashed near Tehran's Mehrabad International Airport, which handles domestic, international and military flights.
The plane struck the building as it went down, Iran's Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) reported. A short time later, an explosion went off on the fourth floor of the building, which had filled with gas.
Video from the scene showed emergency personnel rushing towards the building which had smoke and flames pouring from its windows.
"I can see flames licking out of the windows of the fourth floor of the building," said a Reuters journalist at the scene.
Shahram Alamdari, a Red Crescent official, told Reuters by telephone from the scene: "It is awful down here. I am suffocating."
In Iran's last major military air disaster, an Iranian Ilyushin-76 troop carrier crashed in the southeast of the country on February 19, 2003, killing all 276 Revolutionary Guard soldiers and crew aboard. |
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