Three killed in Iran police aircraft crash: state media

Three people on board a small police training aircraft were killed on Wednesday in a crash in northern Iran, state media reported.

“A light training aircraft crashed near the city of Rasht on Wednesday due to a technical malfunction,” the official IRNA news agency quoted citing the police, adding that “the pilot, co-pilot and flight engineer were martyred.”

Sanctions-hit Iranian officials have lamented the difficulty in obtaining replacement components to keep their aging fleets in the air after a number of air mishaps in recent years.

Since 1995, the US has imposed an embargo on the Iranian aviation sector, which has forced airlines to ground a portion of their fleet and prevented them from buying civilian aircraft or spare parts.

In May of last year, a helicopter disaster claimed the lives of former President Ebrahim Raisi, his Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, and six other people.

Iranian authorities claimed that a mechanical issue was the reason behind the 2009 disaster of a Tupolev-154 operated by Caspian Airlines, which killed 168 passengers and crew members when it crashed into a field while traveling to Armenia.