Caspian Airlines TU-154 accident in Iran; no survivors

by B. N. Sullivan

A passenger aircraft operated by Caspian Airlines has crashed in Iran. The aircraft, a Tupolev Tu-154M (registration number EP-CPG), operating as Caspian Airlines flight RV7908, was en route from Tehran, Iran to Yerevan, Armenia at the time of the accident. There were no survivors among the 168 people on board.

The accident happened on July 15, 2009, at about 11:33 AM local time. The aircraft had departed from Tehran Imam Khomeini International Airport just 16 minutes before the accident occurred. Some news reports say that the crew reported a fire in the No. 1 engine just prior to the crash. The aircraft is said to have impacted the ground in an agricultural field near the village of Jannatabad, in Qazvin province, about 120 km northwest of Tehran. The aircraft was completely destroyed by the crash and a fire, with wreckage reportedly covering an area of about 200 square meters.

The complete passenger manifest for Flight RV7908 has been published on the Caspian Airlines web site. The official manifest lists 12 crew members and 156 passengers.

According to Caspian Airlines, the names of the crew members, all of whom perished on Flight RV7908, are as follows:

1. MR.ALI ASGHAR / SHIR AKBARI
2. MR.JAVAD / MASOUMI HESARI
3. MR.MAHDI / FIROUZE SOUHEIL
4. NIMA / SALEHIE REZVE
5. MR.GARIGOURI / BARSEGHIAN
6. MR.SOREN /MOUGHOUMOUNIAN
7. MR.SEIED ABAS / GHAEEM MAGHAMI
8. MR.AMIR ALI / MALEKI NEJAD
9. MRS.FERESHT / SAMAKI RAHMAT
10. MRS.SANAZ / ASLANI
11. MRS.MARYAM / FARHADI HAGHANI
12. MRS.MARYAM /KAMANI

Condolences to the families, flying partners and friends of the crew and passengers who lost their lives in this accident.

Here are links to several news videos about this accident that have been posted to YouTube: AlJazeera / Associated Press / MediaNewsChannel.

A photo of the aircraft (taken long before the crash) can be found here on JetPhotos.net.

UPDATE: Iranian news web site PressTV is reporting that two 'black boxes' have been recovered from the wreckage of Caspian Airlines Flight RV7908, but they are damaged. PressTV quoted Ahmad Majidi, Head of the Crisis Working Group of Iran's Road and Transportation Ministry, who said the boxes were "heavily damaged but experts are trying to retrieve data from them."

"If efforts to retrieve data from the boxes fail, they will be sent back to the country that has produced them so that they could be repaired in order to find the reason behind the crash," Majidi said.