“It will take at least two months until (we are able to) announce the cause of the crash,” Ahmad Majidi, the head of the special working group investigating the Caspian Airlines crash, told the Mehr News Agency on Tuesday.
Caspian Airlines Flight 7908 was en route to Yerevan, the Armenian capital, when it crashed on July 15 in northwestern Iran, killing all 153 passengers and 15 crew members. The plane, a Russian-made Tupolev, went down 20 kilometers from the city of Qazvin about 15 minutes after takeoff from Tehran’s Imam Khomeini Airport.
The plane broke into very small pieces and only three pieces larger than two meters were discovered. The black boxes of the ill-fated plane were found but they are badly damaged.
Majidi said the investigation team has not yet succeeded in finding the CVR (cockpit voice recorder). The plane hit the ground like a missile and no part of the pilot cabin has yet been found, he added.
Excavations are being carried out in an area with a diameter of 7 to 8 kilometers from the crash site to find plane parts, and local residents have been asked to turn over any parts they find to local officials, he explained.
Majidi stated that Iranian and Russian experts are currently analyzing the FDR (flight data recorder), and added that the FDR tape may be transferred to Russia for further study.
IRNA has reported that the Iranian parliament will call for a probe into the cause of the crash.
The bodies of 152 people killed in the fiery plane crash have been returned to their families, Majidi said on Sunday.
Of the 168 victims of the plane crash, 48 were from the Armenian community living in Iran. Relatives of the victims held a memorial service at St. Sarkis Church in Tehran on Sunday. Hundreds of Armenian Christians, several members of the Iranian parliament, and former Majlis speaker Mahdi Karroubi attended the service.
A funeral ceremony was held for the victims on Monday. Caspian Airlines Managing Director Asghar Razzaqi and a number of other government officials attended the ceremony.
Among the victims of the crash of the Tupolev was Leon Davidian, a former member of parliament who had represented the Armenian Christians of northern Iran.
Iranians blame the aging fleet and sanctions, which prevent Iran from buying modern airplanes and spare parts, for the tragic incident.
U.S. sanctions prevent Iran from buying European spare parts or planes.
Iranian Civil Aviation Organization Director Ali Ilkhani said the Tu-154M that crashed was built in 1987, was bought by Iran in 1998, and had an overhaul certificate valid until 2010.
Sanctions on airline industry are still killing people
In a statement released on Monday, National Prosecutor General Qorban-Ali Dorri Najafabadi denounced the sanctions against Iran’s airline industry, calling them inhumane.
“The ICAO (International Civil Aviation Organization) and other international organizations must realize that the sanctions imposed on the airline industry are a clear manifestation of actions against humanity,” he stated.
“Despite all the efforts in recent years to improve flight safety, sanctions on plane parts are still killing passengers,” the official said.
PA/HG
END
MNA
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