Iranian plane crashes after fire, killing 168

By Caren Firouz and Hossein Jaseb

JANNAT ABAD, Iran (Reuters) - A Tupolev aircraft crashed in Iran on Wednesday on its way to Armenia after catching fire in mid-air and plowing into farmland, killing all 168 people on board just 16 minutes after take-off.

In the worst crash in Iran for six years, the Russian-built Caspian Airlines plane left only scattered bits of incinerated metal and fragments of the bodies of 153 passengers and 15 crew across a wide area around a deep smoking crater in the ground.

The Tu-154 plane, flying to Armenia's capital Yerevan from Tehran, crashed near the northwestern city of Qazvin shortly before noon (0730 GMT). Officials said they would not know why it crashed until the black box flight recorders have been found.

Eight members of Iran's national junior judo team and two coaches were among the dead as well as a former Iranian MP representing Iran's Armenian minority and, reportedly, the wife of the head of Georgia's diplomatic mission in Iran.

"I saw a finger of a passenger on the ground. There is no sign of the airplane, just small pieces of metal," said a Reuters witness. "I do not see even a complete leg or arm."

Weeping relatives and friends gathered at Yerevan airport where a notice on a wall listed people who were on board. Doctors treated relatives for shock and heart problems.

Six Armenian and two Georgian citizens were on board, the deputy head of the Armenian civilian aviation authority Arsen Poghosyan told a media briefing at Yerevan Airport. Two crew and 29 passengers were Iranian citizens with ethnic Armenian backgrounds, he said.

Iran is home to some 100,000 ethnic Armenianns, many of whom frequently fly between Tehran and Yerevan to visit relatives.

Fina Karapetian, an Armenian in her 30s, said her sister and two nephews, 11 and 6, were on board the crashed plane. "I heard everyone in the aircraft has died. What will I do without Armen and Vahe?" she said, before fainting.

TOTALLY DESTROYED

Security forces held back distraught relatives who tried to break through the cordon at the site to find loved ones' bodies.

"The Tupolev plane has been totally destroyed and the corpses, unfortunately, have been totally burned and destroyed," Qazvin police commander Massoud Jafarinasab told semi-official Fars news agency.

A local official said the aircraft had technical problems and tried to make an emergency landing. "Unfortunately the plane caught fire in the air and it crashed," he told Fars.

One witness said he had seen the plane on fire in the air, trying to land. "It made circles in the air. Then I heard an explosion," Mostafa Babashahverdi, a farmer, told Reuters.

"We found severed heads, fingers and passports of the passengers," he said.