Iran Air Says Will Receive 5 New ATR Planes on Sunday

Iran Air said Saturday it was set to take delivery of five new planes from Franco-Italian firm ATR just before renewed US sanctions go into effect. 

"Based on existing agreements, five new ATR aircraft will land at Mehrabad Airport at 9 am (0430 GMT) tomorrow (Sunday)," the national carrier said on its Telegram channel. 

The new ATR-72600 planes are part of a deal for 20 new aircraft that Iran Air agreed to buy in April 2017, of which eight have so far been delivered. 

The deal was thrown into doubt by the US decision to withdraw from a 2015 nuclear deal between Tehran and major powers and reimpose sanctions, part of which are due to resume from Tuesday. 

Iran says US sanctions are endangering lives by blocking the sale of new planes and spare parts for its aging fleets. 

Iran's Aseman Airlines was ordered to ground its fleet of ATR planes in February after one of them crashed in the Zagros mountains, killing all 66 people onboard. 

Photo Credit: IRNA

Rescue Teams Recover Black Boxes at Site of Iran Plane Crash

Rescue teams have recovered the black boxes of a plane that crashed last month in the mountains of southwestern Iran leaving 66 people dead, official media reported on Sunday.

"The box that recorded flight parameters and the one with conversations in the cockpit have been handed over to judicial authorities," Reza Jafarzadeh, the public relations director of Iran's civil aviation organization, told official news agency IRNA.

Jafarzadeh said the two black boxes of the Aseman Airlines ATR-72 were found on Saturday by rescue teams, who had resumed search operations in the Zagros mountains on Friday after bad weather forced them to halt efforts for nearly a week.

They were to be handed over to investigators seeking to determine the cause of the accident. The aircraft, on a domestic flight out of Tehran, went down in a snowstorm on February 18 and crashed at a height of about 4,000 metres (13,000 feet).

There have been no reported survivors from the plane's 66 passengers and crew. The crash site has been hit by heavy snowfall in recent days, making rescue operations particularly dangerous due to avalanche risks, according to officials quoted by local media.

So far, only body parts have been recovered from the scene of the crash. Forensic teams have performed tests on 51 samples of human tissue in attempts to identify the victims, IRNA reported.

Photo Credit: Tasnim

Iran Grounds Airline's ATR Planes After Crash

Iran's civil aviation organization has grounded ATR planes belonging to Aseman Airlines after one of them crashed this week with 66 people on board, state television reported Friday.

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 meters (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.

Photo Credit: Wikicommons