Twenty-nine people were killed on Friday when an Iranian airliner caught fire after landing in the northeastern city of Mashhad, Iran's civil aviation chief said, lowering earlier reports of up to 80 dead. Talking to state television, the Civil Aviation Organization's Nurollah Rezai Niaraki said 29 bodies had been recovered from the plane, 43 people were injured and the rest of the 148 people on board survived unhurt.He added that some of those injured had been treated as out-patients at Mashhad hospitals. State television had earlier said the death toll on the flight to Mashhad from the southern port city of Bandar Abbas was at least 80. Niaraki also said that since the flight crew survived the crash, a better understanding on the cause of the accident will surface.
Previously state media reported that the Russian-made Tupolev 154, on an internal flight from the southern port of Bandar Abbas, skidded off the runway and crashed into the nearby barriers, leaving gaping holes in the fuselage. The incident was the latest tragedy to hit Iran's aviation industry, whose fleet is made up largely of Soviet or old Western planes owing to the US sanctions imposed after the Islamic revolution in 1979.