ISTANBUL, Dec. 6--An Iranian military cargo plane filled with local journalists crashed into an apartment building in the capital city of Tehran Tuesday afternoon, killing at least 118 people, according to state news agencies.
The C-130 clipped a 10-story apartment building near Mehrabad Airport, located in southwest Tehran in an area of several sprawling residential complexes.
The plane had taken off moments earlier, then doubled back to attempt an emergency landing. Witnesses said one wing was in flames as the plane descended. The building burned for several hours, as rescue workers joined passersby in scrambling to help the wounded.
Tehran State Radio said there were no survivors among the 94 people aboard the plane, which was ferrying journalists to observe a naval exercise in the Persian Gulf. Another 24 people perished on the ground, the station said.
A police officer said he saw the bodies of several children, Reuters news agency reported. Schools were closed Tuesday because of dangerously high levels of air pollution.
Journalists covering the disaster were reported to be weeping openly for their colleagues among the victims. Riot police struggled to prevent civilians from pushing through the gates of the complex to look for friends and relatives.
News footage showed extensive damage to the sturdy concrete apartment block, located in a neighborhood set aside for military families. A red and white checkerboard water tower loomed over the wreckage.
A Mehrabad runway lay just beyond the crash site. The aging airport, valued for its convenience in a city with some of the worst traffic in the world, has remained open despite the completion of the vast new Imam Khomeini International Airport south of Tehran more than a year ago. It takes at least an hour to reach the new airfield from the capital center.
The cause of the crash was not immediately known. Iran has a poor air safety record, although the fact the C-130 is an American-made aircraft may play a role in the investigation. U.S. sanctions on Iran have led to chronic shortages of spare parts. The shortages have so bedeviled Tehran that the Bush administration has held out the possibility of lifting the sanction on airline parts as a bargaining chip in negotiations over the future of Iran's nuclear program.
