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Iranian authorities are reporting that search teams have found the wreckage of the Aseman Airlines plane that went missing on Sunday.
The crash site was located in Noghol village, nearly 4,000 meters up Dena mountain. A rescue personnel told IRIB that there were “scattered bodies around the plane.”
“The Revolutionary Guards’ helicopters this morning found the wreckage of the plane on Dena mountain,” a spokesman, Ramezan Sharif, told state broadcaster Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB).
The ATR-72 aircraft disappeared in the Zagros mountains with 66 people – 60 passengers and 6 crew members – on board. Aseman Airlines flight EP3704 could not be located about 45 minutes after it took off from Tehran.
Inclement weather had hampered search parties, but the heavy snow and fog cleared early Tuesday, giving helicopter teams better visibility.
Over 100 mountaineers had been aiding with the search on snowmobiles on the 4,409-meter peak.
“Last night, a number of people stayed on the mountain and through coordination with local guides managed to search all crevices,” Mansour Shishefuroosh, head of a regional crisis center, told the ISNA news agency.
“Since yesterday the Guards’ drones started carefully identifying the geographical area where the plane had probably crashed and this morning two helicopters of the air forces were dispatched to the location,” Sharif said.
Crash investigators from a French air safety agency were due to arrive in Iran on Monday.
Aseman Airlines was blacklisted by the European Commission, in December 2016, over safety concerns.
According to NAN, Iran has complained that sanctions, imposed by the United States, have jeopardized the safety of its airlines and made it difficult to maintain and modernize the fleets.
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