Caspian Airlines Flight RV 7908 crashed on Wednesday at 11:33 a.m. in northwestern Iran, 60 miles from the capital city of Tehran. A total of 168 people perished in the crash. The passenger manifest included a crew of 15 plus 153 passengers, two of them children.
The plane originated from Tehran Imam Khomeini International Airport and had been in the air for 16 minutes on a flight to Yerevan, Armenia when it crashed near Qazvin (see map below) while trying to execute an emergency landing.
The plane’s high speed impact caused a huge crater in a farm field and scattered pieces of the plane and passenger debris nearby. There were reports of fire at the scene.
The aircraft was a three engine Russian-made Tupolev Tu-154M, considered the workhorse of the commercial fleet. It is believed that the aircraft involved was EP-CPG (photo below). The plane was built in 1987 and has served Caspian Airlines since 1998.
The Flight RV-7908 passenger list reveals that 10 members of Iran’s youth judo team were on board the flight; eight athletes and two coaches are among the dead.
Mehr news agency has been providing sketchy details from a tentative passenger list.
View crash video below.