Aria Airlines suspends activity after plane crash in Mashhad

The Aria Airlines suspended its activities as of Saturday morning a day after its Ilyushin-62 plane crashed in northeastern Iran killing 16 people on board mostly its Kazakh crew.

“The Aria Airlines suspended its activities until further notice,” spokesman for Iran’s Civil Aviation Organization Reza Ja'far-Zadeh told IRNA.

Commenting on the reasons behind the plane crash, the spokesman said, “The unauthorized speed while landing seemed to be one of the reasons for the crash.”

The Russian made plane which was chartered by the Aria Airlines skidded off the runway with 153 passengers and crashed when it reportedly faced problems with its tires while landing at the Hashemi-Nejad Airport in the holy city of Mashhad in Khorassan Razavi province at 18:10 hours local time (14:40 hours GMT) on Friday.

Local officials said that 16 people were killed and 21 were injured while the rest of the passengers were all safe and intact.

Managing Director of the airlines Mehdi Dadpey was among the victims.

The ill-fated plane flew from the capital Tehran to Mashhad, 1,000 kilometres away.
Another Iranian passenger plane crashed soon after take off, on July 15, killing 168 people aboard in Takestan region in Qazvin Province northwest of the capital Tehran.

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