A Ukrainian passenger jet with 176 people on board crashed in Iran early on Wednesday with all passengers reportedly killed in the crash.
The Causalities on board are said to be 82 Iranians, 63 Canadians, 11 Ukrainians,10 Swedish , 4 Afghans, 3 Germans and 3 British respectively.
According to the Iranian media, the Boeing 737-800 jet crashed near Parand, a suburb southwest of capital Tehran shortly after the takeoff.
The plane had taken off from Imam Khomeini International Airport when a fire struck one of its engines, said Qassem Biniaz, a spokesman for Iran’s Road and Transportation Ministry.
The pilot of the aircraft then lost control of the plane, sending it crashing into the ground, Biniaz said, according to the state-run IRNA news agency.
Images posted on social media also indicated that there were no survivors. Earlier reports had said there were 180 people on board.
The journalists of The Associated Press news agency who visited the site saw the debris scattered across farmlands. The dead lay among shattered pieces of the aircraft. Rescuers in masks shouted over the noise of hovering helicopters as they worked.
According to Flighradar24 flight tracker, the Ukraine International Airlines flight 752 was scheduled to take off at 5:15am Tehran time (01:45 GMT) for the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv.
However, the departure was delayed by almost an hour as it took off at 6:12am (02:42 GMT).
A video posted by Iran’s ISNA news agency showed a faint glow of light flickering in the dark shortly before a huge fireball was seen.
Photos posted online by ISNA also showed the wreckage of the plane scattered all over the ground, as emergency personnel inspected the area.
