BA Boeing Co

By Aresu Iqbali and Rory Jones 

A Ukraine International Airlines plane crashed in Iran's capital on Wednesday with at least 170 passengers and crew members on board, according to Iranian state television.

The Boeing 737 single-aisle jet crashed after taking off from Tehran's Imam Khomeini International Airport en route to the Ukrainian capital, Kiev, state news said.

A spokesperson for Ukraine International Airlines couldn't immediately be reached for comment.

An Iranian air accident investigation team was headed to the crash, the spokesman for Iran's air regulator told state television. A report on casualties would come later, the spokesman said.

The crash came as Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps launched a series of strikes against two bases with U.S. troops in Iraq, which the Iranian force said were retribution for the U.S. killing of Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani.

Over the past year, Boeing Co. has suffered a series of technical failures with its newer-version 737 MAX aircraft. The Ukrainian 737 is an earlier model and doesn't have the flight-control feature that was implicated in crashes last year and led to Boeing grounding the MAX fleet globally.

The Wall Street Journal couldn't independently verify what caused the crash. Iranian media said it was due to a technical fault without explaining how they reached that conclusion. Determining the likely cause of a crash typically can take days or months.

Iran has a poor air-safety record. Iranian carriers and air-safety regulators are hobbled by a lack of access to technology, spare parts and new planes for aging fleets because of yearslong Western sanctions.

Pirhossein Koulivand, head of Iran's emergency medical services, told state television there was a massive fire at the crash site that made it impossible to start aid operations.

Morteza Salimi, head of Relief and Rescue at the Red Crescent Society, told state television, "It's unlikely that anyone has survived this accident."

A Boeing spokesman said the company is aware of the media reports and is gathering information.

Write to Rory Jones at rory.jones@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

January 08, 2020 00:02 ET (05:02 GMT)

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