Antonov-140 crashes in Iran killing all 48 aboard (12/29/02)

Antonov-140 crashes in Iran killing all 48 aboard

by Yarema Bachynsky
Special to The Ukrainian Weekly

KYIV - All 48 persons aboard a Kharkiv-manufactured AN-140 plane perished when it went down near the Iranian city of Isfahan on December 23, Ukrainian and Iranian news agencies have reported.

A Ukrainian governmental commission has been formed and sent to Iran to investigate the tragedy with local officials, including studying the craft's black boxes, recovered by the Iranians. Preliminary reports immediately following the crash suggested that pilot error may have caused the high-tech plane to slam into a mountainside as it was coming in for a landing at Isfahan's airport.

According to the news portal Korrespondent.net, however, the pilot and co-pilot had over 8,000 hours of flight time between them, including hundreds of hours flying the AN-140 to and from Isfahan, where the planes have been manufactured under license since 1999. The terrain around this central Iranian city is extremely rugged, according to Ukrainian news agencies.

According to the Embassy of Ukraine in Iran, the plane was carrying a high-level delegation of Ukrainian and Russian aircraft industry executives. Among the dead were Boris Okulov, the general director of the St. Petersburg-based Rubin aviation enterprise; numerous department heads of the Kharkiv Aircraft Plant and the world-renowned Antonov Design Bureau; as well as officials of Aviakor, the Samara, Russia-based aviation plant that provides 65 percent of all parts for the AN-140, which is assembled in Kharkiv and Isfahan.

The Antonov-140 is a medium-range twin turbo-prop passenger and cargo liner, planned as the replacement for a range of older aircraft from Soviet times, including the workhorse AN-24 and AN-26 turbo prop planes that are the mainstay of Ukraine and Russia's smaller domestic carriers, and the Yak-40, a small jet. The passenger version of the AN-140 seats 52 passengers. The aircraft is certified by the Inter-State Aviation Committee; the State Aviation Administration of Ukraine; and is up to Federal Aviation Administration (U.S.) standards, according to manufacturer information.

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