A Ukrainian commercial airliner, a Boeing 737-800, with 176 people on board crashed on Wednesday soon after taking off from Tehran’s Imam Khomeini airport.
Iran’s state television said all those on board, majority of them Iranians, were killed.
Addressing reporters in Tehran, Reza Jafarzadeh, a spokesman of the Iranian Aviation Organisation said:
An investigation team from the national aviation department was dispatched to the location after the news was announced. We will give more reports in upcoming bulletins.
According to Flighradar24 flight tracker, the Ukraine International Airlines flight 752 was scheduled to take off at 5:15 am Tehran time (01:45 GMT) for the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv.
The departure was however delayed by almost an hour as it took off at 6:12 am (02:42 GMT).
According to Al Jazeera.com, the Boeing 737-800 is a common single-aisle, twin-engine jet used for short to medium-range flights and a number of 737-800 aircraft have been involved in deadly accidents over the years.