Dubai - A Caspian Airlines plane slid off
the runway onto a highway on landing at an airport in
southwestern Iran on Monday, but all passengers were evacuated
without injury, Iranian state media reported.
"The Caspian Airlines Boeing Flight No. 6936 with 135
passengers had left Tehran for Mahshahr on early Monday morning.
It ran out of runway when landing at Mahshahr airport with no
casualties," state news agency IRNA reported.
IRNA, quoting local aviation officials, said a technical
issue delayed the plane's landing which caused the accident.
"The plane did not catch fire and all passengers safely left
the plane," managing Director of Khuzestan Airports Mohammad
Reza Rezaei told IRNA.
On Saturday, an Iranian airplane en route from Tehran to
Istanbul made an emergency landing at a Tehran airport because
of a technical problem, the semi-official Mehr news agency
reported.
Iran's airlines have been plagued by crashes, which Iranian
rulers blame on U.S. sanctions that block the airlines from
replacing their ageing fleets or purchasing spare parts from the
West.