Tehran: Iran grieved on Wednesday for at least 119 people killed on Tuesday when a military plane hit a Tehran apartment block and burst into flames in the third air crash to kill more than a 100 people in the country in four years.
Among the dead were 68 journalists and media technicians, en route to cover military exercises in the Gulf. At least 22 of the dead were killed on the ground in their apartments or cars.
"Today is the worst day of mourning for the media, as it was unprecedented to see so many of our dear colleagues lose their lives," Culture and Islamic Guidance Minister Mohammad Hossein Saffar-Harandi told the official IRNA news agency.
Funerals for many of the victims were expected to be held later on Wednesday.
All 94 passengers and crew aboard the US-made C-130 Hercules transport plane died, officials said.
The pilot reported engine problems minutes after take off from Tehran's Mehrabad international airport, officials said.
The plane circled back for an emergency landing but did not make it to the runway, crashing into a densely-populated residential area inhabited by military families.
The Tehran Coroner's Office told the ISNA news agency that it had received 116 corpses. Twenty-eight people, some in critical condition, were taken to hospital.
"I was sitting at home when the windows suddenly smashed and flames came pouring in," said a woman with cuts on her neck.
Call for investigation
Parliament's minority Opposition faction called for an immediate investigation into the cause of the crash, the latest in a string of fatal air accidents in Iran in recent years.
The schools were closed due to a smog alert in the Capital.
"Both the main and reserve fuel tanks were full which is why the plane went up in flames as soon as it hit the building," Iran's fire brigade chief Ahmad Ziaie told state television.
Air safety experts say Iran has an ageing, poorly-maintained fleet of aircraft due in part to US sanctions imposed in the 1990s which prevent it from buying US-built planes or spare parts.
In Iran's last major air disaster, an Iranian Ilyushin-76 troop carrier crashed in the southeast of the country on February 19, 2003, killing all 276 Revolutionary Guard soldiers and crew aboard. In February 2002, 119 were killed when a passenger jet hit a mountain in western Iran.
Local media carried touching tributes to colleagues who died on Tuesday?s crash.
"We hear that your burned press cards have been found, we hear that nothing is left but a few parts of a burned plane," the Fars news agency reported.
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