Training Flight Claims Five Students

Details are sketchy, but it has been reported that a C-130 owned by the Iranian military went down on Wednesday, some thirty miles south of Teheran.

The official word is that two pilots and five students were aboard; none survived.

The early afternoon crash, in the Rudshour River drainage, was caused by, according to Iranian radio monitored by the Associated Press, "technical failure." Two dozen armed military guards quickly surrounded the crash site, near the new Imam Khomeini International Airport, which is not officially open, but which is servicing certain flights. The airport was named for the late Ayatollah, who took over the anti-Shah revolution in Iran, and who became most-famous for humiliating the United States after taking over the US Embassy in Teheran and holding dozens of Americans captive. The captives were released on President Reagan's inauguration day in 1981.

The C-130s in Iran's fleet are older models, dating at least to the late 1970s, and their maintenance and flight-readiness have been hampered by US parts embargoes, according to additional sources. Similar problems apparently are to blame for the grounding of many Iranian Airbuses and Boeing airliners.

In February, 2000, another Iranian C-130 ran into an Airbus A300 as the Herk was taking off from Teheran's soon-to-be-closed Mehrabad airport. At least five were killed in that collision, as both aircraft caught fire.

FMI: www.iiaf.net