Iranians blame government in plane crash

TEHRAN, Iran — Mourning and anger mixed in Iran Wednesday as a newspaper reported that officials may have known of problems with a military transport before it took off and slammed into an apartment building, killing at least 115 people.

The four-engine turboprop was carrying journalists to cover military maneuvers in southern Iran when it suffered engine failure and crashed Tuesday, killing all 94 people aboard and at least 21 in the building. At least 90 people were injured.

A photographer for the Hamshahri newspaper who was aboard the flight told his wife before takeoff that the pilot was refusing to fly the C-130, the newspaper reported.

"Mohammad Karbalai-Ahmed, Hamshahri's photographer, called his wife and told her that the flight was delayed apparently because of a technical problem and the pilot refuses to take off," the newspaper said. The paper did not identify the wife by name.

Aviation officials were not available for comment.

The plane was returning to make an emergency landing at Tehran's Mehrabad airport when it hit the 10-story building in the Azure residential district.

Iranian flights often face delays due to technical or logistical problems. U.S. sanctions imposed after the 1979 Islamic revolution hinder the aviation industry from purchasing spare parts for its fleet of American-made aircraft.

Newspapers published black-bordered, front-page tributes to the dead journalists on Wednesday. Hamshahri described the tragedy as "Iranian media's greatest grief."

State television ran archive footage honoring the TV reporters and crew who died. Some newscasters recited prayers for the dead.

The cause of the crash of the Lockheed-made plane remained under investigation.

Dressed in black, hundreds of friends and relatives of the victims lined up outside a Tehran morgue Wednesday to identify the dead.

Blaming the government, Mansour Rezvani, 21, said: "It is not usual to transfer nonmilitary people by military plane, a plane that was built in my grandfather's time."

Houshang Qajar, 53, said crisis management was nonexistent in Iran.

"Occasionally we hear bad news — earthquakes, floods, road accidents and air crashes," he said. "We need competent managers. That is what our country lacks."