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Three Germans on board Ukranian plane that crashed in Iran: reports

AFP/DPA/The Local
AFP/DPA/The Local - [email protected]
Three Germans on board Ukranian plane that crashed in Iran: reports
The plane crashed in the The plane crashed southwest of Tehran, killing all on board. Photo: DPA

Three Germans are among those believed to have died when a passenger plane bound for Kiev crashed in Iran in the early hours of Wednesday.

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The passenger plane – a Boeing 737-800 operated by Ukrainian International Airlines and said to be carrying around 170 people – went down less than ten minutes after taking off from Imam Khomeini international airport at 6.12am Tehran time, according to international media reports.

Vadym Prystaiko, the foreign minister of Ukraine, said on Twitter that known passengers included 82 from Iran, 63 from Canada, 10 from Sweden, four from Afghanistan, three from Germany and three from the United Kingdom, as well as two passengers and nine crew from Ukraine.

"Our embassy in Tehran is working hard to clarify the situation," Germany's foreign office told DPA.

"The tragic accident of flight #PS752 from Tehran to Kiev fills us with deep sadness," tweeted German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas. "In these difficult hours our thoughts are with the relatives of the victims, to whom our sincere sympathy is directed."

According to Flightradar, the aircraft was delivered new to the airline in 2016 and is powered by two CFM56 engines.

video shared by Iranian state-run news agency Isna claimed to show it burning as it fell from the sky.

"The plane crashed five minutes after taking off," The Guardian quoted Iranian civil aviation spokesperson Reza Jafarzadeh as saying. "The pilot had no contact with the tower and didn't announce an emergency situation before the crash."

The crash is not believed to be linked to terrorism or a rocket attack, CNN quoted the Ukrainian embassy in Iran as saying, citing preliminary information.

Halted flights

In the meantime, German airline giant Lufthansa announced Wednesday it would not fly over Iran and Iraq "until further notice", after Tehran launched missiles at US bases in Iraq.

"We are no longer overflying Iran and Iraq until further notice," a Lufthansa spokesman told AFP, adding that Wednesday's daily Frankfurt-Tehran flight was cancelled, while Saturday's twice-weekly service to northern Iraqi city Erbil would also not depart.

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