The Hindu : 44 die in Iranian plane crash near Sharjah

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Feb 11, 2004

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44 die in Iranian plane crash near Sharjah

By Atul Aneja

MANAMA, FEB. 10. Forty-four people, including 12 Indians, were feared killed when an Iranian airliner crashed near Sharjah airport in the United Arab Emirates this morning.

The plane, a Fokker-50, with 46 passengers on -board, including a child and a six-member crew had taken off from the Iranian island of Kish. It crashed just before landing at Sharjah.

According to the WAM, the official news agency of UAE, the aircraft which belonged to Kish Air, a privately owned Iranian company, crashed at 11 A.M local time at an uninhabited spot between the Emirates of Sharjah and Ajman. The dead included 19 Iranians, four Egyptians, two Filippinos, two Algerians and one each from Bangladesh, China, Nigeria and Syria.

An agency report quoting Sharjah police said that the identity of one person was yet to be established. Two people had survived the crash, but were in hospital in a serious condition.

WAM had earlier reported that three people had survived the disaster.

Rescue workers and medical teams had earlier recovered 33 charred bodies from the crash site. Airport authorities have taken possession of the two black boxes of the plane.

Eyewitnesses said that they saw the plane losing control and smashing first into a road three km from the Sharjah airport complex.

The plane narrowly missed two upscale residential neighbourhoods before going down.

Apart from the flaming wreckage, the crash site was strewn with papers and belongings of the passengers. Bodies covered in red blankets were placed in a row.

Kish is known as an Iranian tourist spot but it is also used by foreign workers in the Gulf countries to acquire visas that enable them to extend their stay in the countries where they work.

Iranian airliners have been prone to accidents in the recent past.

Aviation experts say that this is partly on account of sanctions imposed on Teheran, which makes acquisition of spare parts needed for maintenance difficult.

List of Indian victims

The following is the list of 11 of the 12 Indians killed in the plane crash: Muhammad Naseeb, K.S. Mohanan, Pookottil Manoj, Jaganathan, Abdul Salam, James Murrayya, Lal Purushotham, Kandaswamy, Khan Faisal, Parvez Ahmad, Samin Parvez.

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