=20 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- This article was sent to you by someone who found it on SF Gate. The original article can be found on SFGate.com here: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=3D/news/archive/2004/02/10/i= nternational0506EST0476.DTL ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Tuesday, February 10, 2004 (AP) Iranian passenger plane crashes in Emirates, killing at least 35 people ADNAN MALIK, Associated Press Writer (02-10) 04:11 PST SHARJAH, United Arab Emirates (AP) -- An Iranian plane crashed Tuesday shortly before arrival at an airport in the north of the United Arab Emirates, killing at least 35 people. Three survivors reportedly were being treated at a local hospital. Rescue workers could be seen searching the burning wreckage for survivors at the Sharjah airport. Bodies were covered in red blankets and placed in a row. The Kish Airline Fokker 50 carried 40 passengers and six crew members. A Civil Aviation official, who spoke to reporters on condition of anonymity, said 35 people were confirmed dead. The cause of the crash was not yet known, said Ghanem al-Hajiry, director general of civil aviation and the Sharjah Airport Authority. It crashed about 11:40 a.m. local time in an open area about two miles from the air field but no one on the ground was injured, he added. Three victims arrived at al-Qasimi hospital in Sharjah, two of them in critical condition and the third listed as stable, according to WAM, the official news agency of the Emirates. More bodies were seen being taken away in ambulances from the crash scen= e, which witnesses said was on a road near an upper-class residential neighborhood. Families of passengers who were expected to arrive on the flight began arriving at the airport. Abdel Rasoul al-Majidy said his 65-year-old father in law was supposed to be arriving on the flight. "We don't know what's going on. All we know is that my father-in-law was arriving today and then we heard of this plane crash," he said. The plane was arriving from the Iranian island of Kish. Previous reports incorrectly said the aircraft crashed on takeoff. Mehdi Mehranpour, deputy managing director of Iran's national carrier, Iran Air, confirmed that the plane belonged to Kish Airline, a separate Iranian company. Kish Airline officials could not immediately be reached. Speaking to The Associated Press in the Iranian capital of Tehran, Mehranpour said the airliner was a Fokker 50, which can carry about 60 people, and that it had crashed in a populated area near Sharjah airport. Flights to nearby destinations such as Kish are mainly used by foreigners who exit and return in order to remain within visa requirements in the United Arab Emirates. Foreigners need to exit and re-enter on a new visa, which takes two or three days to process. Kish is a favorite destination for visa changes because tickets are cheap and foreigners do not need visas to enter the island. Cheap hotels cater to visa-changers, many of them laborers or maids working in the Emirates. Such flights normally used by Asian workers, including Indians, Pakistanis and Filipinos, who make up the bulk of the Emirates' work force. Iran has a history of air accidents, often blamed on badly maintained planes. In June, an Iranian military C-130 transport plane crashed outside Tehran, killing all seven people on board. In February, a Russian-made Ilyushin-76 crashed in southeastern Iran, killing all 275 aboard. In Belarus in September, a Tupolev-154 belonging to Kish Air on a Tehran-Minsk-Copenhagen went off course while making its landing approach at the Minsk-2 airport, striking trees which caused serious damage to the plane's wings. None of the 40 people aboard were hurt. In 1995, an Iranian flight attendant hijacked a Kish Air Boeing 707 to Israel during a flight from Tehran. The plane was returned to Tehran with 174 passengers and crew. Last month, a top Iranian aviation official asked the United States to lift sanctions on its airline industry as a humanitarian gesture so the country can buy spare parts for its airplanes. Tehran has blamed many of its air crashes on U.S. sanctions, saying they have prevented the country from repairing and replacing an aging fleet that includes many Russian-made Tupolev planes. Iran has complained of trouble buying European-made planes as well because some Airbus parts are American-made. Kish Airline operates a fleet of four TU-154M jets, a Russian aircraft, = on domestic and international flights and four short-range Fokker-50s, German turboprops, according to the company's Web site. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Copyright 2004 AP