Iran plane crash: 168 on board feared dead

A passenger plane carrying 150 people crashed Wednesday in northwest Iran, and all on board were feared dead, state media reported.

The Caspian Airlines jet was heading from Tehran to the Armenian capital Yerevan when it crashed near the village of Jannatabad outside the city of Qazvin, around 75 miles northwest of Tehran, state television said.

The Qazvin emergency services director Hossein Bahzadpour tells the IRNA news agency that the plane was completely destroyed and shattered to pieces, and the wreckage was in flames. "It his highly likely that all the passengers on the flight were killed," Bahzadpour said. He did not give a number, but state TV said 150 were on the flight.

Caspian Airlines is a Russian-Iranian joint venture founded in 1993. Iran has frequent plane crashes, which it blames on U.S. sanctions on the country that prevent it from getting spare parts for aging airplanes. Caspian Airlines, however, uses Russian-made aircraft whose maintenance would be less impaired by American sanctions.