www.breitbart.com/news/2005/12/06/D8EAVS3O3.html
Witnesses said the C-130 plummeted to earth after ripp ing open the top of the building and igniting a large fire. Cars were sm ashed and debris was scattered over a wide area. Panicked residents fled the Towhid residential complex, a series of high-rise apartment buildin gs for air force personnel in the Azadi suburb of Tehran.
Most were Iranian radio and television journalists heading to c over military maneuvers in southern Iran. In addition to the 34 resident s of the apartment building who died, 90 were injured, Tehran state radi o said. Firefighters extinguished the fire in the building, which was damaged and charred but still standing. Several hours after the crash, the building was still smoldering, with black smoke hanging in the air. Scuffles bro ke out as police tried to keep thousands of onlookers from getting near the site. Many in the crowd were screaming, afraid their relatives had been killed. "It was like an earthquake," said Reza Sadeqi, a 25-year-old merchant who saw the plane hit the building. He said he was thrown about nine feet i nside his shop by the force of the crash. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who was visiting Saudi Arabia, sent condol ences. "Rescue teams are required to employ their maximum capability to save and help the survivors," state-run television quoted Ahmadinejad as saying. He asked one of his deputies to take charge and ensure survivors receiv e the help they need. The plane, which belonged to the army air force, had just taken off for B andar Abbas in southern Iran when it developed engine trouble. As it hea ded back to Tehran's Mehrabad Airport, the pilot was unable to maintain sufficient altitude and hit the apartment complex, state-run television said. Witness Iraj Moradin told The Associated Press the plane appeared to be c ircling the airport when its tail suddenly burst into flames, leaving a smoke trail as it plummeted. He said he fled when he thought the plane w as going to crash into a gas station, but turned in time to see it hit t he building. The C-130 is built by Lockheed and has four turboprop engines. The plane may have been sold to the Iranian air force when the United States had c lose relations with the Iranian monarch, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, bef ore the Islamic revolution in 1979. In April, an Iranian military Boeing 707 with 157 people aboard skidded o ff a runway at Tehran airport and caught fire, killing three people. In 2003, a Russian-made Ilyushin-76 carrying members of the elite Revolutio nary Guards crashed in the mountains of southeastern Iran, killing 302 p eople. In 2002, a Ukrainian-built aircraft carrying aerospace scientists crashed in central Iran, killing all 44 people aboard. And in 1988, an Iran Air A300 Airbus was shot down by the USS Vincennes over the Persian Gulf, k illing 290.
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