A military helicopter crashed into a fruit market in the central Isfahan province of Iran, killing four people, according to reports.
The pilot and the co-pilot were killed, along with two merchants in the market, reported state media.
Emergency services rushed to the spot to put out the fire after the helicopter came down in Dorcheh, Iranian state television reported. The footage aired on local media showed debris and smoke rising from the market.
The town of Dorcheh is located some 330km south of Iran's capital, Tehran, in the country's Isfahan province. Isfahan is home to a major Iranian air base, as well as a nuclear site struck by the US during the Iran-Israel war in June.
A map of Dorcheh:
According to the local media, the army helicopter had been on a training flight.
The crash comes a week after a US built F-4 fighter belonging to Iran’s Air Force crashed in the western province of Hamadan, killing one pilot during a training flight.
The repeated incidents, many involving aircraft bought before the 1979 Islamic Revolution, have raised concerns about Iran’s air safety record. This as comes as Western sanctions have dried up the supply of parts for aircraft in Iran, which relies on a fleet of ageing helicopters and airplanes for both its government and commercial airlines.
Earlier last year, president Ebrahim Raisi was also killed in a helicopter crash allegedly caused by bad weather conditions, Iran's initial probe found. Raisi, 63, died alongside Iran’s foreign minister Hossein Amirabdollahian and two senior local officials on 19 May.
The president and the other men were flying in a US-made Bell 212 helicopter, when the aircraft lost the ability to handle the weight it was carrying due to harsh weather conditions, Fars news agency reported, citing a security source.
The helicopter involved in the crash was nearly 30 years old and came directly from a Bell manufacturing plant in Montreal, Canada, to the Iranian air force, according to data from the firm Cirium. It counts 12 Bell 212 aircraft registered in Iran that are still in service.
Bell Textron Inc., based in Fort Worth, Texas, at the time also shrugged any responsibility for the maintenance of the aircraft, saying it "does not conduct any business in Iran or support their helicopter fleet, and we do not have knowledge about the active state of the helicopter involved in this accident”.
While former Iranian foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif tried to blame sanctions for the crash, US State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller pushed back saying America is “not going to apologise for our sanctions regime at all”,
“Ultimately, it’s the Iranian government that is responsible for the decision to fly a ... helicopter in what was described as poor weather conditions, not any other actor,” he added.
Laura Loomer and Tucker Carlson are feuding and she wants Trump to intervene
US orders staff to leave Beirut embassy as tensions with Iran grow
Trump to look at larger action should strikes not work in Iran: report
Protesters erupt in universities across Iran as Trump weighs military strikes
Trump ‘to be guided by Witkoff and Kushner on decision to strike Iran’
Syrian TV dramas are a Ramadan staple. Assad’s fall could change that
