Iranian officials have retracted state news service reports that search crews pinpointed the location of the wreckage of the Iran Aseman Airlines ATR 72-200 that crashed during a scheduled flight Sunday morning between Tehran and the western Iranian city of Yasuj. Flight EP-3704 disappeared from radar at about 8 a.m. local time while carrying 66 people over a mountainous area of central Iran. On Sunday the airline told state television that all of the occupants died in the crash, although at the time search crews had not found the wreckage.
The ATR reportedly had re-entered service just months ago after a seven-year grounding due to lack of parts availability. The airline, however, already has ruled out technical failure, instead blaming weather conditions. Weather reports indicated high winds and fog in the area at the time of the crash.
Aseman Airlines, which flies an eclectic fleet of aging aircraft that fell into disrepair during a sanctions regime that barred Western parts from entering the country, last year signed a firm order for 30 Boeing 737 Max narrowbodies after the Obama Administration lifted the restrictions in return for concessions related to Iran’s nuclear testing program.
Boeing, however, has yet to deliver an airplane either to Aseman or Iran Air, which placed an order in December 2016 that calls for delivery of fifty 737 Max 8s, fifteen 777-300ERs and fifteen 777-9s.
Iran Air took delivery of its first four ATR 72-600s last May, officially triggering a transaction that includes a firm order for 20 of the Franco-Italian turborprops and options for a further 20. The contract calls for deliveries of the 20 airplanes on firm order to extend until the end of 2018. Airbus delivered Iran Air’s first A321 narrowbody on January 11 last year under the terms of a contract covering 46 A320-family jets, 38 A330s and 16 A350s.
While Boeing, Airbus and ATR have all secured their required licenses from the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) to deliver any airplane carrying 10 percent U.S. technology content, questions persist about whether the new Treasury Department secretary appointed by the Trump Administration will exercise his right to amend, modify or revoke the licenses. While Trump remains critical of the 2015 nuclear settlement with Iran that allowed for the export of commercial aircraft to the Islamic Republic, he has also lauded Boeing for its role in creating U.S. jobs through the sale of its aircraft around the globe.