If already publicized please remove this topic.
Just received the message that a ATR plane from Aseman crashed in Iran with between 60 and 100 people on board.
No more information yet.
See link for more information.
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-new ... e-12045621

Here is a link in Persian that makes sense if translated: http://www.irna.ir/fa/News/82835656

The only Aseman flight I can see disappearing on FR24 around the reported 5AM departure is a Fokker 100 and much closer to Qom than Isfahan, so I think that is just an FR24 thing rather than the accident aircraft.

Just before minutes an ATR72 , http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/02/i ... 46342.html , https://www.google.gr/search?q=Track+EP ... e&ie=UTF-8

BBC is reporting that the plane came down in the Zagros mountains which can reach as high as 4.400 meters. Could it be that they were flying lower and hit a peak? The weather seems to be bad in that area.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-43103192

Wow, if this is true, it has not been a good few weeks for aviation. There were 4 deaths in commerical aviation in 2017... we already had a plane in Russia crash with 71 people on board die, and now another 60-100 may possibly be dead in Iran

The aircraft is EP-ATS an ATR72-212.

many fatal crash in this year

Flight radar just posted on twitter that the 6 ATRs have old transponders, so they couldn't be tracked. I also read somewhere that a helicopter has located the crash site but couldn't land due to bad weather..

Report of 66 people on aircraft, 60 passengers plus 6 crew

http://www.airlive.net/breaking-aseman- ... mountains/

Reporting coming through now that rescuers have found the site and determined that it is not survivable - 66 were onboard.

The record time between fatal commercial accident is quickly becoming a distant memory

Sad news, Aseman announced that all 66 on board didn't survive
https://twitter.com/AviationWG/status/9 ... 4282130432

Very sad. A good year in 2017 and now 2 in roughly 7 days.

A crew of 6 on an ATR? Anyway, RIP...

qf789 wrote:

Report of 66 people on aircraft, 60 passengers plus 6 crew

http://www.airlive.net/breaking-aseman- ... mountains/

My thoughts and prayers are with all the families who lost someone in the crash. Hope they find the cause of the crash and they are able to retrieve all bodies for a proper farewell

2 pilots, 2 flight attendants and 2 air marshalls.

See AvHerald.

Well there goes the safety record... This is the second fatal accident in less than a week? I know this is pure coincidence, but still.

Could it be CFIT? The plane was sort of close to the landing airport, so perhaps they descended a bit too fast, or ATC cleared them too early? There are also unconfirmed reports of the pilot calling ATC reporting an engine failure before the crash, but this happened a few hours ago so I'm taking it with a huge grain of salt.

How's the maintenance and part availability for the aircraft? Supposedly with the end of sanction, they should be able to source parts for their planes as normal?

OA940 wrote:

Well there goes the safety record... This is the second fatal accident in less than a week? I know this is pure coincidence, but still.

Could it be CFIT? The plane was sort of close to the landing airport, so perhaps they descended a bit too fast, or ATC cleared them too early? There are also unconfirmed reports of the pilot calling ATC reporting an engine failure before the crash, but this happened a few hours ago so I'm taking it with a huge grain of salt.

It is less than a week. We found 3 incidents since last week. On 11 February - Saratov plane has crashed in Russia, then 2 days later United Airlines suffered engine failure while flying from SFO to HNL without any fatalities or injuries and now Iran Aseman plane disappears somewhere over Iran less than an hour after take off with everyone killed. However to me, the Iran Aseman plane appears to have no mayday calls onboard and the plane was uneventful until it crashed 1 hour later after take off.

c933103 wrote:

How's the maintenance and part availability for the aircraft? Supposedly with the end of sanction, they should be able to source parts for their planes as normal?

I think this is all the more reason for allowing Iranian airlines to upgrade their fleet, purely humanitarian reasons. Though they are getting new aircraft from EU suppliers, the inconsistency and tone from US govt. creates major uncertainty.

Are older ATRs equipped with GPWS and TCAS? Given that they use older transponders that can not be picked up by FR24 it seems possible to me that they may not be.

Was reading recent Flight Intl issue questioning are we out of the wood yet for incidents and accident and it gave a good rundown on fatal and non-fatal incident and accidents in 2017. 2018 is quickly shaping up to erase good safety record we have achieved in 2017.

RIP to all perished.

That's really unfortunate, damn. I believe this airline still operates 727 aircraft, so yeah, they're quite old school... not sure how old the ATR in question is, but I'd be willing to say it has a few years on it at the very minimum.

Veigar wrote:

That's really unfortunate, damn. I believe this airline still operates 727 aircraft, so yeah, they're quite old school... not sure how old the ATR in question is, but I'd be willing to say it has a few years on it at the very minimum.

ATR 42/72 EP-ATS 391 Iran Aseman Airlines

Serial number 391
Type 72-212
First flight date 26/10/1993
Test registration F-WWED
Plane age 24.3 years
Engines 2 x PWC PW124B

via airfleets.net

Veigar wrote:

That's really unfortunate, damn. I believe this airline still operates 727 aircraft, so yeah, they're quite old school... not sure how old the ATR in question is, but I'd be willing to say it has a few years on it at the very minimum.

24.3 years

From 26th OCT 1993

According to planespotters.net, the plane in question had been in storage for 6 years between 2011 and 2017 at Shiraz airport.

NG263 wrote:

According to planespotters.net, the plane in question had been in storage for 6 years between 2011 and 2017 at Shiraz airport.

ATR 42/72 EP-ATS 391 Iran Aseman Airlines

Serial number 391
Type 72-212
First flight date 26/10/1993
Test registration F-WWED
Plane age 24.3 years
Engines 2 x PWC PW124B

via airfleets.net


Aviation Iran
- @aviationirancom
5m5 minutes ago
Aviation Iran Retweeted Aviation Iran
The involved aircraft, ATR72 EP-ATS, returned to service a few months ago. It had been grounded for 7 years.

RIP fight EP3704 victims.
RIP ATR72 EP-ATS

RIP to all onboard. Sad start to the aviation safety year.

The ATR seems to have its fair share of incidents, featuring in 5 or 6 fatal crashes in the past few years?

http://www.airsafe.com/events/models/atr.htm

sandyb123

sq421 wrote:

c933103 wrote:

How's the maintenance and part availability for the aircraft? Supposedly with the end of sanction, they should be able to source parts for their planes as normal?

I think this is all the more reason for allowing Iranian airlines to upgrade their fleet, purely humanitarian reasons. Though they are getting new aircraft from EU suppliers, the inconsistency and tone from US govt. creates major uncertainty.

Interesting argument. We don't know what the reason for the crash is yet though, but bad weather seems to be an indicator.

Very sad news.

sandyb123 wrote:

RIP to all onboard. Sad start to the aviation safety year.

The ATR seems to have its fair share of incidents, featuring in 5 or 6 fatal crashes in the past few years?

http://www.airsafe.com/events/models/atr.htm

sandyb123

unsurprising.
ART42/72 ~~1400 built more than 1000 still active mostly in short range bus stop mode underway.

c933103 wrote:

How's the maintenance and part availability for the aircraft? Supposedly with the end of sanction, they should be able to source parts for their planes as normal?

The aircraft had been out of service from 2010 until 2017.

Veigar wrote:

That's really unfortunate, damn. I believe this airline still operates 727 aircraft, so yeah, they're quite old school... not sure how old the ATR in question is, but I'd be willing to say it has a few years on it at the very minimum.

They also have an A340-300...line number 2. Strangely, that's the plane that was sent by Iran to JFK last year for UN week.

they may rest in peace ... sad news for our Country and Hommies

ltbewr wrote:

I wonder if icing was a factor in this crash, given its location in an elevated mountainous area and the issues of icing with ATR's.

The first thing I thought of was American Eagle 4184. I wonder if the incident ATR had the recommended upgrades to the ice detection and removal systems.

Given the bad weather and mountainous terrain, it will be interesting to see what the "black boxes" reveal from the last moments of the flight.

It seems that it was not the fault of the Russian airliners after all? Iranians are finding out that Western aircraft fall out of their skies at the same rate and for the same reasons its Russian(Soviet)-built fleet once did, or perhaps even worse.

What was the weather like at the time? Might this be a controlled flight into terrain?

The airline is calling it CFIT due to poor weather and indeed the weather and visibility were poor. However, the available facts do fit a CFIT narrative. IMC, crash into mountains, no mayday. Al Jazeera and WaPo both reported it.

WaPo is skeptical, and hints that aircraft age and maintenance may be to blame, but CFIT does make sense. Iran may have an old fleet, but 24.5 years isn't *that* old; the UA 777 that had the (mostly) contained failure was around the same age. The crash into mountains is always suspicious for CFIT; mountains are known to hang out in clouds. With an in-flight breakup you'd expect the wreckage to scatter over a wide area. With engine or control failure, you'd expect a mayday.

I wish the family and friends of the passengers peace, strength, and healing in this horrible and shocking time.

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/02/i ... 46342.html
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wor ... 2ae0fd39d1

aemoreira1981 wrote:

The aircraft had been out of service from 2010 until 2017.

Really? Uh, if true that's interesting... could be a factor.

But, statistically, almost all accidents are due to pilot error (combine with a number of other issues, like otherwise survivable equipment failures). Here we have bad weather, mountainous terrain... I'd be surprised if this was strictly a mechanical fault. CFIT is a possibility.

Having flown on many commercial flight in Iran:
[list=]1) The terrain is generally high and mountainous (5500 m [16000 ft] just north of Tehran which makes for incredible views on sunny days)
2) The weather conditions can be extreme.
3) Very cold and snowy conditions have been involved in two Iran Air 727 crashes (January 1980 and January 2011). Also icing was a factor in an IR Fokker F-100 take off mishap at THR (January 2008) and possibly in a landing one near IFN (January 1998).
4) The hot and high summer conditions can be atrocious, specially in engine failure upon take off conditions (as in the August 2014 An-140 crash).
5) A major type for the domestic operations has been the F-100. Over nearly three decades, the two main shortcomings of the type (icing and landing gear failures) have been experienced in Iran as well as other locations. The landing gear has been a major problem, the latest being a Qeshm AIr incident in MHD three days ago (and by my account 5 other IR/EP incidents) The US embargo has exacerbated the issue, particularity after Fokker Services got into major legal trouble with the American authorities for providing support to Iran Air (Chicago and other conventions not withstanding, of course)
6) The domestic Iranian MRO industry has been simply incredible in maintaining the fleet despite the sanctions and other domestic and foreign challenges.
7) The CAO has been quite strict about not allowing less than fully airworthy planes from operating (though EP-MNE is one of those that they missed). By one account, there are over 100 aircraft grounded due to lack of parts and/or manufacturer technical support.
8) On the other hand, CAO may have been perhaps too responsive to public outcries over crashes of Soviet/Russian/Ukrainian models by withdrawing the type certificates for Tu-154M and An-140, but allowing the elderly B727 to fly. The latter still flies for Aseman (not even hush-kitted)
9) With partial lifting of sanctions parts and support are very slowly becoming available. The fact that EP-ATS was in storage for 7 years and then just recently fully overhauled merely reflects these facts. I couple of years back I flew on two other EP ATR-72s that had been in storage in awhile[/list].

Thanks for the information, a300!

The benefits of lifting western sanctions on iranian aircraft purchases far outweighs concerns about military transport. It saves civilian lives.

Jouhou wrote:

The benefits of lifting western sanctions on iranian aircraft purchases far outweighs concerns about military transport. It saves civilian lives.

Sanctions as driven and controlled by the US are designed to disrupt a civilization.
No real dual use military aspect at all. Most hit were things that were needed
for basic medical care that had a microscopic dual use vector.

Madeleine Albright: killing kids is OK.

WIederling wrote:

Jouhou wrote:

The benefits of lifting western sanctions on iranian aircraft purchases far outweighs concerns about military transport. It saves civilian lives.

Sanctions as driven and controlled by the US are designed to disrupt a civilization.
No real dual use military aspect at all. Most hit were things that were needed
for basic medical care that had a microscopic dual use vector.

Madeleine Albright: killing kids is OK.

Believe it or not half of Americans are aware of the situation. It's politics and alliances with other regional powers in the middle east that get in the way.

And yeah the military use concern is real, just not consequential in the grand scheme of things.

Jouhou wrote:

Believe it or not half of Americans are aware of the situation.

Looks like neither half seems to have control over the wheel Lead from the back.

Contrary to earlier reports, the aircraft does not appear to be found yet. Given the total lack of information, and thus the possibility of survivors, I hope the search and RESCUE efforts are intensified.

Trying to avoid politics here, but I would hope modern ELTs were not on any embargo or sanction list. Maybe as a humanitarian gesture, countries with orbital resources could help and give a “hint” where to look.

Thinking about the ATR that went down due to incorrect fuel gauges, that possibility could imply a controlled descent into mountainous terrain. It doesn’t always have a 100% fatal outcome

SLCPilot

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-iran ... SKCN1G30QD

Slcpilot wrote:

Contrary to earlier reports, the aircraft does not appear to be found yet. Given the total lack of information, and thus the possibility of survivors, I hope the search and RESCUE efforts are intensified.

Trying to avoid politics here, but I would hope modern ELTs were not on any embargo or sanction list. Maybe as a humanitarian gesture, countries with orbital resources could help and give a “hint” where to look.

Thinking about the ATR that went down due to incorrect fuel gauges, that possibility could imply a controlled descent into mountainous terrain. It doesn’t always have a 100% fatal outcome

SLCPilot

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-iran ... SKCN1G30QD

That very same link now says it was found.

Slcpilot wrote:

Thinking about the ATR that went down due to incorrect fuel gauges, that possibility could imply a controlled descent into mountainous terrain. It doesn’t always have a 100% fatal outcome

That gauge came from an ATR 42, which is incompatible with the one on the ATR 72. There are no ATR 42s in Iran as far as I can see, so it seems at bit unlikely. Of course they could have inadvertently source a black part from one.

The wreckage has been found

https://twitter.com/airlivenet/status/9 ... 1011376128

Slcpilot wrote:

Trying to avoid politics here, but I would hope modern ELTs were not on any embargo or sanction list. Maybe as a humanitarian gesture, countries with orbital resources could help and give a “hint” where to look.

I doubt that satellites can see much more in conditions that make the use of helicopters difficult to impossible. Perhaps locating an ELT could be possible but I'm not sure if any satellites at all are currently used to do that. Advanced sensing methods would also be difficult due to the likely small size of the pieces. Also, AFAIK the ESA Sentinel/Copernicus programme provides all raw data for free use, so the Iranian team (or anyone else) could use that.

On Feb 20th 2018 Iran's Revolutionary Guards reported helicopters and unmanned aerial vehicles have sighted the wreckage 30 meters below the peak of the mountains south of Noqol (http://avherald.com/h?article=4b511c15&opt=0)

If they truly impacted just 30 meters below the summit through CFIT, this flight and those inside were truly unlucky.
Some early reports claimed that the crash was unsurvivable and that all aboard perished but in light of the wreckage being found only today, I wonder how reliable that information is. Perhaps some passengers even survived the initial impact? The conditions at 13000 feet certainly wouldn't help them, though.

mxaxai wrote:

I doubt that satellites can see much more in conditions that make the use of helicopters difficult to impossible. Perhaps locating an ELT could be possible but I'm not sure if any satellites at all are currently used to do that.

Since the changeover from the old 121.5/243MHz standard to the new 406MHz standard a little over a decade ago, the primary means of locating an ELT has been by satellite, using the COSPAS-SARSAT system, which has been active since 1982.

V/F