Iran envoy offers condolences over Turkey's deadly plane crash
Iranian ambassador to Turkey expressed condolences over the 'sad occasion' of the Sunday night plane crash which claimed the lives of all 11 people on board.
Mohammad Ebrahim Taherian also sympathized with bereaved families of the victims of the deadly accident, IRNA reported.
The business jet carrying eight passengers and three crew members crashed into a mountain in central Iran on Sunday, killing all on board.
The plane was flying back to Istanbul from the Persian Gulf Emirate of Sharjah. It was owned the Basaran Holding, a company active in construction and building luxury yachts.
The blackbox of the crashed jet was found and will be delivered to the officials for further investigation, an Iranian official said on Monday.
According to Turkish media reports, daughter of the Turkish billionaire Huseyin Basaran was among 11 victims of the deadly air crash.
Black box of Turkish jet crashed in Iran found, 10 bodies recovered
Search teams have found the black box of a Turkish private jet that crashed earlier in an Iranian mountain range on its way from the UAE to Istanbul, also recovering 10 bodies from a total of 11 who had been on board.
The Turkish jet, identified by Turkish media as a Bombardier CL604, crashed in the Zagros Mountains outside the city of Shahr-e Kord and some 370 kilometers south of Iran’s capital, Tehran, on Sunday evening, Press TV reported.
Ten bodies have been recovered so far. But heavy rain and wind at the crash site initially made it impossible for helicopters to land in the area and bring the bodies down.
Families of the victims arrived Monday in Shahr-e Kord, accompanied by Turkish diplomats, IRNA reported.
The cause of the crash remains unknown. It had taken off from Sharjah International Airport in the UAE on Sunday and a little over an hour into the flight, it rapidly had gained altitude before rapidly plunging within minutes, according to FlightRadar24, a flight-tracking website.
Sharjah civil aviation authorities said in a statement late Sunday night that the plane’s eight passengers were six Turks and two Spaniards. There were also three crew members.
“The plane did not apply for maintenance procedures while on the ground of the airport,” their statement said.
According to reports, all on board were women, including the crew.
They were the seven hen party guests who perished along with a Turkish socialite bride-to-be when her private jet crashed in Iran.
Heiress Mina Basaran, 28, had jetted her friends out to Dubai for a weekend-long hen-do, and the plane went down as the group were returning to Istanbul, Turkey on Sunday.
The guests have been identified as Zeynep Coşkun, Ayşe And, Burcu Urfalı, Aslı İzmirli, Liana Hananel, Jasmin Baruh and Sinem Akay.
The flight likely carried Mina Basaran, the 28-year-old daughter of the chairman of Basaran Investment Holding.
Turkey’s Transport Ministry said the aircraft belonged to her father’s company.
The party was also intended for three of the other women, due to be married this summer. Several of the women, like Mina, had successful careers in the fashion industry.
Turkish media reported that at least one of the victims was pregnant, AFP reported.
Photographs reprinted from social media showed the women lounging at a resort at the UAE and posing with the two pilots inside the plane.
The two female pilots were reportedly Beril Gerbes and Melike Kuvvet, who was one of the first female pilots in the Turkish armed forces but left and worked in civil aviation.
Villagers near the crash say they saw flames coming from the plane's engine before the crash, according to a report by Iran's state-run judiciary news agency Mizan, Daily Mail reported.
“The plane is on fire. After the pilot asked to lower altitude, it disappeared from the radar,” Tasnim quoted an ICAO official as saying.
“The wreck of the jet and the bodies are found. They will be carried down from the mountain when sun comes up. My condolences to those who lost their loved ones,” the head of humanitarian organization Turkish Red Crescent Kerem Kinik, said on Twitter.