Plane skids off runway in Iran, passengers safe
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The Iranian passenger plane on a highway outside Mahshahr airport. It had skidded off the runway when trying to land yesterday.
PHOTO: EPA-EFE
DUBAI • A Caspian Airlines plane slid off the runway onto a highway on landing at an airport in southwestern Iran yesterday, but all passengers were evacuated without injury, Iranian state media reported.
"It ran out of runway when landing at Mahshahr airport with no casualties," state news agency Irna said. Some other media outlets reported 135 passengers and seven crew members were on board.
Irna, quoting local aviation officials, said a technical issue delayed the plane's landing which caused the accident.
Iranian media reported that the pilot was unable to deploy the landing gear, adding that the incident was being investigated.
Photos of the aircraft show the registration number EP-CPZ, indicating it was a McDonnell Douglas MD-83 built in 1994.
"The plane did not catch fire and all passengers safely left the plane," the managing director of Khuzestan Airports told Irna.
An unverified video on social media shows an evacuation of passengers from the plane sitting in the middle of a highway in Mahshahr.
Last Saturday, an Iranian plane en route from Teheran to Istanbul made an emergency landing at a Teheran airport because of a technical problem, the semi-official Mehr news agency reported.
Iran's airlines have been plagued by crashes, which Iranian rulers blame on US sanctions that block the airlines from replacing their ageing fleets or purchasing spare parts from the West.
REUTERS
