Technical problem seen behind Iran plane crash

AFP, Tehran

A technical problem appears to be the cause of the crash of an Iranian airliner which burst into flames and plunged into farmland, killing all 168 people on board, a top official said on Thursday.
"The pilot could probably not be blamed for this crash and we think it was likely due to a technical problem," Ahmad Majidi, head of the transport ministry's crisis unit, was quoted as saying by the Mehr news agency.
Iranian officials said three black boxes from the Russian-built Tupolev airliner have also been found, but that two were seriously damaged.
"Because of the severity of the accident two systems linked with the black box have been damaged in such a way that the tapes have come out of the boxes and scattered on the ground," Majidi said.
The plane caught fire in mid-air en route to Armenia and plunged into farmland outside a village in northwest Iran on Wednesday just 16 minutes after take-off, killing all 153 passengers and 15 crew members.
Five Russian experts are due in Tehran on Friday to probe the cause of the crash of the Caspian Airlines Tupolev-154, news agencies reported. The plane had undergone a safety check in Russia last month and had received a flight licence until 2010, Majidi said.
Witnesses said the plane was ablaze before it smashed into the ground and exploded near the city of Qazvin. Television images showed a vast smoking crater littered with debris of plane parts, shoes and clothes.