A Ukrainian passenger plane with 176 people on board has crashed shortly after take-off from the international airport south of the Iranian capital, Tehran, killing all those aboard.
Ali Khashani, a senior public relations official at Imam Khomeini International Airport, said the Boeing 737 operated by the Ukraine International Airlines (UIA), which was bound for Kiev, went down early Wednesday in the vicinity of Parand, a city in Robat Karim County, Tehran Province.
The plane caught fire after crashing.
According to Kashani, the crash was likely due to technical problems.
Later, Kashani announced that all the 167 passengers and nine crew members of the plane had died in the crash, according to IRNA.
Reza Jafarzadeh, a spokesman for Irans Civil Aviation Organization, said most of the passengers of the plane had been Iranians.
Rescue teams were sent to the site of the crash immediately after the crash.
The head of Irans Emergency Medical Services, Pir-Hossein Koulivand, also confirmed to Tasnim news agency that all those on board had been killed.
Koulivand said the fire had been extinguished and emergency crews were now collecting bodies.
Kashani, the public relations official at Imam Khomeini International Airport, said the crash had not affected traffic at the port and that all other flights were taking place according to schedule.
Mansour Darajati, the director general of crisis management at the Tehran Governors Office, said the Offices Crisis Management Committee would shortly convene to investigate the crash of the Boeing 737.
However, Qassem Biniaz, an official at the Iranian Ministry of Roads and Urban Development, told IRNA that the plane crashed after its engine caught fire. The pilot made an unsuccessful attempt to control the plane when the fire erupted, he said.
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