BA Boeing Co

By Aresu Eqbali and Rory Jones 

A Ukraine International Airlines jetliner crashed shortly after takeoff from Tehran on Wednesday, killing all 176 passengers and crew members on board, according to Iranian state television.

The Boeing Co. 737-800 single-aisle jet crashed after departing the Iranian capital's Imam Khomeini International Airport en route to Kyiv.

"All the passengers have died," Pirhossein Koulivand, the head of Iran's emergency medical services, told state television. "Bodies are being collected by the relief team to transfer to [the] coroner as soon as possible," he said.

Reza Jafarzadeh, a spokesman for Iran's Civil Aviation Organization, told state television the plane left the airport at 6:12 a.m. and the accident occurred a few minutes later. He said the aircraft had 167 passengers and nine crew members on board.

Iranian media said the crash was due to a technical fault without explaining how that conclusion was reached.

The cause of an aircraft accident can take months or years to resolve, but heightened tensions between Iran and the U.S. have focused attention on potential ripple effects in the aviation industry in one of the world's busiest flight corridors, a crossroads for services between the Middle East, Europe, Asia and Africa.

Ukraine International Airlines has a fleet of 40 jets, most of them modern, Western-built jetliners that are rented from aircraft lessors. The airline couldn't immediately be reached for comment.

Iran has a relatively poor air safety record, with its airlines and infrastructure hobbled by sanctions that led to shortages of spare parts and the cancellation of $40 billion in new aircraft from Boeing and Airbus SE.

An Iranian air accident investigation team is at the scene collecting bodies and has found the plane's black box, Iranian state television reported.

State television reported that most of the passengers were Iranian. Hassan Rezaifar, head of the Civil Aviation Organization's accident investigation told state TV that the pilot didn't contact air traffic control about an emergency situation.

The crash came after 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 has suffered a series of technical failures with its newer 737 MAX aircraft. The Ukrainian 737 is an earlier model and doesn't have the flight-control feature that was implicated in two crashes that led to regulators grounding the MAX fleet world-wide last year.

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 01:45 ET (06:45 GMT)

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